The Love Of Jonathan and the Love Of Jesus

The Love Of Jonathan and the Love Of Jesus

(No. 2336)

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1893.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
SEPTEMBER 29, 1889.

"Your love to me was wonderful, surpassing the love of women." 2 Samuel
1:26.

DAVID was a poet and when he found that his best-beloved friend had
fallen by the arrows of the Philistines, he wept greatly and then he
cheered his heart by writing the very fine elegy which, in later years
was called, "The Song of the Bow." Even if David's lamentation is
judged according to the canons of literary taste, it must be placed
among the first of poetical compositions. Thus David tried to keep his
friend's memory green–the song was meant to be a memorial of him. Such
friends as Jonathan are not common and when we have had them, we must
not forget them. It is sad that, in these days, friendship is
proverbially a frail thing. Friends are like swallows that are with us
in our summertime and gone when the damps of autumn begin to gather.
When a man has a faithful friend, let him grapple him to his side with
hooks of steel! And when he loses him, let him know that he has lost
what will be very hard to replace and let him not forget his friend
though he is buried beneath the sod. True friendship likes to fashion
memorials of the departed. We keep mementos of the loved ones we have
lost. We like to think of the happy days of communion we have had
together and we will not allow the cherished name to be blotted out
from the memory of men.

When I thought of this subject, I said to myself, "I shall see many,
tonight, who are lovers of the Lord Jesus Christ. I shall be face to
face with thousands who love Him as they love their own soul." I
believe that is my happiness now. Well then, beloved Friends, let us
who love Christ keep Him always in memory. If you can speak of His
name, be not silent. If you can make melody in honor of Jesus, in the
great congregation, take down the minstrel's harp and lay your fingers
among the strings and bring out sweetest music to His dear name that
thousands may hear! But if you have a feebler instrument, sing or play
to the two or three and let those who love you know that you love your
Lord best of all! Or if your tongue fails you, use your pen to let men
know who Jesus is. Say, with the Psalmist, "My heart is inditing a good
matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the King."

What shall we do to keep Christ's name before the sons of men? Let us
be inventive and often make the winds and waves to bear the story of
His life and love to those who know it not. I would whisper in the ear
of someone, "If you love Jesus, how is it that you are never at His
Table?" If there is anyway of keeping Him in memory, which is better
than every other, it is the one which He has, Himself, chosen–"This do
in remembrance of Me." How do you excuse yourselves, you lovers of
Christ, who have never kept up this feast of love? This is one of His
dying requests, "Meet and remember Me." And yet, though you say that
you love Him, and I will not challenge the truth of what you say, you
have never yielded obedience to His loving request and come to eat the
bread and drink of the cup which are the memorials of His broken body
and His poured-out blood. David, you could sing of Jonathan, though
there was no law that you should do so! What will you say of some who
love the Christ of God better than you loved Jonathan and yet have
never remembered Him in the way in which He asked to be remembered, but
have cast behind their back the sweet forget-me-not of the Communion
Table?

Let that stand as a preface. May the Lord put our hearts in tune, now,
while we think upon two things! The first is the small type, Jonathan's
love to David. The second is the infinite anti-type, Christ's love to
men. Perhaps it will be sweetest, tonight, if we can, each one, say,
"Christ's love to me. He loved me and gave Himself for me." That
expression will be in harmony with the words of the text, "Your love to
me was wonderful."

I. First, then, we have to think a little about JONATHAN'S LOVE TO
DAVID.

Jonathan's was a singular love, because of thepureness of its origin.
Jonathan loved David out of great admiration of him. When he saw him
come back with the head of Goliath in his hand, he loved him as a
soldier loves a soldier, as a brave man loves another brave man. He
felt that there was the right kind of metal in that young man and
though Jonathan was the king's son, and heir-apparent to the throne, we
find that he, "stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave
it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and
to his belt." He felt that such a hero, who could so trust his God, and
so expose his life, and come off so victorious, deserved his utmost
love. It did not begin in self-interest–it did not begin in
relationship–but it began in the likeness that Jonathan saw between
his own nature and that of David. It was one brave man loving another
brave man.

Jonathan's love proved, also, to be most intense. It is said that, "he
loved him as his own soul." He would at any moment have sacrificed his
life to preserve the life of David. In fact, I do not doubt that
Jonathan thought David's life much more valuable than his own and that
he was quite willing to expose himself to peril that David might be
preserved. Jonathan's was a very intense love. May we see more of this
kind of love among Christian men! May they love each other for Christ's
sake and because of the love of God which they see in one another–and
may they be intense in their affection!

Jonathan's love was very disinterested because, as I have said,
Jonathan was heir-apparent to the throne, but David had been anointed
king by Samuel. The kingdom was to be taken from the house of Saul and
given to the house of David. Very naturally, the young prince Jonathan
might have felt, first, envy, and then hatred of David, who was to
supplant him. But instead of that, he said to him one day, very
touchingly, "You shall be king over Israel and I shall be next unto
you." He meant to be his friend and his helper, taking joy in seeing
David wear the crown which might have adorned his own brow. Happy
Jonathan, to be able to put himself in the background like that and to
feel that, if David was first, it was what he, himself, desired! That
friendship, in which a man can set himself on one side for the sake of
another, is not yet so common that we can have it in the streets.

Jonathan's was a love which bore up under all opposition, for he soon
found that Saul, his father, in his black heart, hated David. Saul
could not bear the thought that another man would take the place which
he coveted for himself, though he did not, himself, deserve to keep it.
He wished to see David dead and because Jonathan took David's part,
Saul was exceedingly angry and made Jonathan's lot hard to bear. Yet
Jonathan did not cast off his friend–he clung to David through good
report and through evil report. Jonathan "is faithful to his father and
very obedient to him, but still, he would not give up his friend,
David, and he would sooner be in jeopardy of the javelin of Saul than
end the friendship that existed between himself and God's chosen
servant.

And this love was very active, for you know how he pleaded for David
with his father. He went out into the field and took counsel with
David. He arranged plans and methods for David's preservation and, on
one occasion, we find that he, "went to David in the wood and
strengthened his hand in God." Yes, his love was not a matter of mere
talk–it was real, practical, active–it was a love which never failed.
When the arrow of the Philistine went through the heart of Jonathan on
Mount Gilboa, it struck the name of David that was engraved there–

"He loved him long, and loved him well, And loved him to the death," so
that David could truly say, "Your love to me was wonderful, surpassing
the love of women."

Now, dear Friends, do you not think that when we read a story like that
of Jonathan and David, it should stir up in us the desire, not so much
to have such a friend, as to be such a friend as Jonathan was to David?
Any man can selfishly desire to have a Jonathan, but he is on the right
track who desires to find a David to whom he can be a Jonathan! There
is great joy in life with real friendship on both sides. Some people
expect friendship to be always heaping its treasures upon them, but
true friendship has two hands, two feet and two eyes. You cannot have a
real friendship that is all for taking, and never for giving. David
loved Jonathan as Jonathan loved David. May that blessed Spirit of God,
who teaches us to love even our enemies, help us to cultivate
sanctified friendships and to be willing to help those who are our
Brothers and Sisters in Christ in time of need!

I shall say no more upon that part of my subject, but I hope it will
rebuke some who are no friends at all. Oh, how often have we met with
such! They are very friendly when their legs are under your mahogany,
but they are not so friendly when you have no mahogany and have hardly
a deal table left. They think all the world of you while you can be a
ladder

by which they climb the wall of prosperity, but when they are on the
top of the wall, they too often say that they never saw that ladder in
all their lives–and you may take it away! We continually see that kind
of thing among men of the world. May it not be so among Christians! May
we be true to all who are our friends, as we would be generous even to
any who are our foes, if such persons are in existence!

II. But I want, now, to talk of something more sweet and more sure. THE
LOVE OF CHRIST TO ME. Using the first personal pronoun, because it is
in the text–"Your love to me was wonderful."

I hope that many here will be helped to use that same pronoun, each one
for himself, or for herself. I do not wish to preach tonight–I want,
rather, to be a sort of guide, just to go through the exercises that
others may do the same. I am to speak of love which I trust many feel,
which I hope they may feel even more than the speaker does–and let it
be the ambition of every one of us to love Christ more and more. Let us
think of Christ as present here, tonight, for so He is, according to
His promise, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the
world." There He stands! With closed eyes, faith perceives Him and she
cries, "Your love to me was wonderful."

I think that we feel this most when we see our Savior die. Sit down at
the foot of the Cross and look up. Behold that sacred brow with the
thorny wreath upon it. See those blessed eyes, red with weeping. Mark
those nailed hands that once scattered benedictions. Gaze on those
bleeding feet which hurried on errands of mercy. Watch till you can
peer into that gaping side–how deep the gash–how wide the breach!
Look how the water and the blood come streaming forth! This is the Lord
of Life and Glory who thus dies amid derision and scorn–suffering, the
Just for the unjust–to bring us to God! Oh, if you can picture Christ
on the Cross, and believe that He died for you, you will be led to cry,
"Your love to me was wonderful, surpassing the love of mothers or of
wives! Your love to me was–I cannot describe what it was–it was
wonderful–as full of wonders as the heavens are full of stars, or as a
forest is full of leave? Your love, as I see it in Your death, was
wonderful."

Do you picture David saying this as he thinks of the body of Jonathan
pierced with the arrows of his enemies? "Your love to me was
wonderful." Will you not stand so, tonight, in imagination, over your
Savior's body, as you see it wrapped in spices and laid in the tomb of
Joseph of Arimathaea? Ere yet the stone is rolled to the cave's mouth,
will you not look on that mangled form and say, "In very truth, Your
love to me was wonderful"?

Beloved Friends, sometimes we feel as if our love to our departed ones
would know another great flood if they could come back again. You have
lost–no, I will not harrow up your feelings–have all lost those most
dear and your sorrow was great as you laid them in the grave. But if,
tonight, when you reached your home, you should find, sitting in that
room of yours, the beloved one come back, I think that your love would
suddenly leap up into an ecstasy and it would be greater than it ever
was before! "Has my husband returned to me? Has my spouse come back to
me? Has my mother, my child, been restored to me?" Oh, what a feast of
love our souls would have if there could be such a reunion in our
bereaved households! Well, remember that He who died for us rose
again–

"He lives, the great Redeemer lives," lives with our love still within
His heart! He lives to love us as much in His eternal Glory as He did
in the shame and spitting while He was on earth! Come, give your love
room, tonight, as you remember Him as dead, but rejoice in Him as
living!

I think, also, that we sometimes feel the greatest love to dear friends
when we find others doing them despite. When David found that
Jonathan's body had been dishonored by the Philistines, that they had
taken away the bodies of King Saul and his sons to hang them on the
wall of Bethshan, then was he sorely troubled and his love broke forth,
again, in sighs, cries and tears. And I must say, tonight, that I love
my Lord all the more because of the insults others heap upon Him. When
I have lately seen books written against His atoning Sacrifice. When I
meet with men calling themselves Christians, who speak lightly of the
sacred Expiation and even of the Divine Person of the great Sacrifice,
my heart first burns with indignation against the traitors–true
successors of Judas–and then my soul cries, "My Savior, by the
dishonor that they put on You, I love You all the more! By the shame
that they again cast on You, as though You were a hundred times
crucified, I vow to serve You with a hundredfold energy and force of
concentrated love, for Your love to me was wonderful." Some can speak
lightly of Christ. Perhaps they never knew such love as He has shown to
me. Some can despise His blood. Possibly they were never washed from
such sins as mine. Some think lightly of His faith. Perhaps

they have never had such communion with Him as my heart has known. I
must say of Him, "Your love to me was, is, and always shall be
wonderful, passing all loves supposable in Heaven or earth besides."

Now let me briefly tell the story of that love–it is a long story–the
love of Christ to me. Part of its wonder lies in the object of this
love, that it should be bestowed upon me! "Your love to me." Dear
Brother, dear Sister, will you talk about it, just now, to yourself?"
It is a wonder that Christ should love anybody, but is it not the
greatest wonder of all that He should love me? Who am I, and what is my
father's house, that Christ should love me?"–

"What was there in you that could merit esteem, Or give the Creator
delight?"

Your love to me! There was special undesert–there were many reasons
why love should have passed me by, but Your love to me was wonderful
that You should single me out. Tell it in Heaven that there is no
greater wonder there than that Christ should love me! And when you get
there, say to all the bright spirits before the Throne of God, "There
is no greater wonder in the salvation of you all than there is in my
salvation. Your love to me, my Lord," and you will bow adoringly at
Christ's feet as you say it, "Your love to me was wonderful."

Then throw the emphasis on the first word, "Your love to me," and you
have another part of the wonder, that is, in the Giver of this love.
For a man to love me, well, should not men love their kind? But for God
to love me, for the Infinite, for the inconceivably lovely One, whose
ideal of that which is loveable must be far beyond human conception,
for Him to love me, this is a miracle, indeed! Can you imagine it, that
God, who is greater than immensity, whose life is longer than time,
that God the all-boundless One, should love you? That He should think
of you, pity you, consider you, this is all very well–but that He
should love you, that His heart should go out to you, that He should
choose you, that He should have engraved you on the palms of His hands,
that He should not rest in Heaven without you, that He should not think
Heaven complete until He brings you there, that you should be the bride
and Christ the Bridegroom, that there should be eternal love between
Him and you–oh, as you think of it, lift up your hands with adoring
wonder and say, "Your love to me was wonderful."

Now begin, if you can, to consider the commencement of this love. When
did God begin to love His own elect? There was a time when He began to
make the worlds, but from eternity He has loved His chosen. Before the
first flash of light illuminated the primeval darkness, God loved His
people! Before the first pulsation of life came into human bodies, long
before there were such beings as men and women, He loved His own. He
saw them in the glass of predestination and foreknowledge and He loved
them. His delights even then were with the sons of men. His love had no
beginning, it was like Himself, self-existent, starting from itself,
and there never was a time when God did not love His own people. Think
of that wonder of Grace, that such a speck of dust as you are should
have been loved from eternity! That such a handful of ashes as I am
should have been loved from before all worlds! Tell it as with voice of
trumpet, for God has said it, "I have loved you with an everlasting
love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you."

Christ's love, then, is wonderful in its beginning and when it began to
work on me, it was still wonderful, for what did I do? I refused it.
When Christ came in robes of love to me and presented Himself as a
candidate for my heart's acceptance, I told Him that I would not have
Him! There was a wanton world that had my heart. There was the devil,
himself, in all manner of sinful shapes–and he had my hand–and I was
his. Was it not so with some of you, that Christ wooed you many a year
and you would not have Him? He came to you, sometimes, threatening, and
sometimes inviting. He came to you by Providences, by preachers, by
books, by His good Spirit. Yet though you turned your back on Him, He
never turned His back on you. He would not take, "No," for an answer–

"Determined to save, He watched o'er my path When, Satan's blind slave,
I sported with death." Think of a man who used to come staggering out
of a public house late at night, yet He is loved of God! Or of a thief,
whose hair was cut short in the prison, yet He was loved of God–and
here he is, tonight, sitting at Jesus' feet, rejoicing in that love!
Oh, what songs there will be in Heaven concerning the love of Christ to
His own and the rebuffs which the dear Lover of our souls received by
the sad, sad usage of ungodly, willful men! "Your love to me was
wonderful."

And when Christ's love led Him to come here and take our Nature, was it
not wonderful? He reigned enthroned in Heaven. Seraphim and cherubim
gladly did His bidding. He was God and yet He came down from yonder
royal palace to that stable at Bethlehem, and to the manger where the
horned oxen fed. 'Tis He! 'Tis He! But as George Herbert reminds us, He
has unrobed Himself and hung His azure mantle on the sky, and all His
rings upon the stars–and there He lies, a

babe in swaddling bands, taking human nature into union with His
Divinity because He loved us! Truly, You blessed Child, whom I would
take into my arms as Simeon did and say, "Lord, now let You Your
servant depart in peace, according to Your Word: for my eyes have seen
Your salvation." Your love to me was wonderful! Behold Christ with the
scepter of Heaven in His hand, and then see Him sitting on the edge of
a well, talking to an adulterous woman! Gaze on Him with the harps of
angels ringing out His praise and then see Him with all the riff-raff
of Jerusalem scoffing at Him and bidding Him come down from the Cross!
If He stooped to become a Man like ourselves, and stooped lower, still,
even unto death, truly may each saved one cry to Him, "Your love to me
was wonderful."

There is one thing that makes the love of Christ more wonderful than
anything else and that is that He not only took our Nature, but He took
our sin. There, scrape it up together, the filthy stuff that has made
God, Himself, to sicken at the thought of man–I mean the sin and the
pollution of our lives! Behold, the Lord has gathered it up together in
one foul heap, enough to putrefy the universe–and He has laid it all
on Christ! And the great Sin-Bearer takes it upon Himself as though it
were His own–but it was not! He suffers for it, He bears the sentence
of Justice on account of it and then He hurls it all away into the
abyss of oblivion where it shall never be found, again! My Savior, did
You bear my sin in Your own body on the tree? Were you condemned for my
condemnation? Then, in very deed, Your love to me was wonderful!

I do not know how to break my text up so as to bring it home to each
Believer. I wish that everyone here, who really has known Christ's
love, would help me by a personal thought upon the brotherly and
condescending character of this love. Times have been when we, who love
Christ's name, have been in trouble and He has been very near to us.
Times have been when we have been misrepresented and abused–and He has
smiled, oh, so sweetly on us! Times have been when bodily pain has made
us very faint and He has put underneath us the everlasting arms. Speak
as you find, Beloved–how have you found the Lord Jesus in your dark
days, in your heavy days, in your weary days? Have you not found Him a
matchless Friend? I can bear my own witness that there is no comfort
like His comfort! There is no smile like His smile! There is no touch
of help like His delivering hand. "Your love to me was wonderful."

Sometimes, when I have told the story of God's goodness to me, a
Christian friend has said, "Have you not written all that down?" "No, I
have not," I have replied. "Will you not take care, before you die,
that it is all written down?" I have said, "No, I do not know that I
shall." Now perhaps your life's story will die out with yourself, yet
have there not been very marvelous touches of Christ's love in it? Have
there not been windows of agates and gates of carbuncle through which
you have seen your Lord's face and can you not say, tonight, looking
over your pilgrim path from the first day until now, "Lord, You have
been always with me. Your love to me was wonderful in condescending,
helpful fellowship in the time of my need"?

Think, also, of the comforting and thoughtful provisions of Christ's
love. Sometimes you have been well-near slipping, not merely as to
trouble, but as to sin. Our lives are not all to our credit–there have
been sad moments when unbelief has crept in on the back of
thoughtlessness and you have been almost a skeptic. There have been
evil moments when sin has insinuated itself into the imagination and
you have almost done that which would have been your ruin. Have there
not been times in your life when you have been struck and, if there had
not been Someone to hold you up, you would have fallen, almost
unconsciously fallen, and there have lain down to die? But oh, how
Jesus has watched over you and cared for you! Never mother nursed her
babe with such care as Christ has given to you! When you look back,
sometimes, and see the pit from which you have been preserved, into
which you might have fallen–when you meet with some old friend who
used, years ago, to be singing at your side, and is now a drunk or
profane–you may ask, "Why should he be like that anymore than I
should? Who has made me to differ? What but the Grace of God has kept
me until now?" Ah, then you see how Christ's love to you has been
wonderful, surpassing the love of women!

But the love of Christ to us is most of all wonderful in its plans for
the future. You know not, and you cannot conceive, what He will yet do
for you! You are in trouble, are you? Well, joy comes in the morning.
But now, you have to drink the bitter cup and God gives you pills that
you do not like. Take them at His hand, for they are meant for your
good. 'Tis but a little while and then sorrow and sighing shall forever
flee away! Has any redeemed man here any notion of what God has
prepared for them that love Him? You shall stand among the perfected
and go in and out among the holy! You shall be where no trouble shall
ever reach you, or even the noise and dash of a wave of sorrow ever
reach your ears. You shall be where it shall be your joy to serve God
without mistake, without transgression and without omission. You shall
behold the face of the King in His beauty, not now and then, but
forever, without a cloud or a veil between!

You shall find it your delight to praise Him and your voice shall be
heard amid the choirs of the glorified as you adore the Lamb whose love
to you has been so wonderful. And what will be your employments in
Heaven? Ah, that I cannot tell you, but they shall be employments that
shall be equally honorable and delightful!

I have told you before what I sometimes dream shall be my lot in
Glory–to stand not here and preach to a handful of people, though it
is truly a large handful–but to stand upon some starry orb and preach
of Christ to whole constellations at once and thunder out my
remembrances of His sweet love to myriads of beings who have never
heard of Him as yet, for they have never sinned, but who will drink in
all the tidings of what Jesus did for sinful men! And each of you,
according to your training for it, shall make known to angels,
principalities and powers, the manifold wisdom of God! There is plenty
of room for you all, for God's universe will need millions upon
millions of messengers to go through it all and tell out the story of
redeeming love. And we, I believe, are here in training for that
eternal work of making known to illimitable regions of space and
countless myriads of intelligent beings whom God has created, but who
have never fallen, the story of this little planet and of the God who
loved it so that He came here and died that He might save His people
from their sins.

Get ready, Brothers and Sisters, for the eternity which is so near!
Within about a hand's breadth, you and I shall be in eternity! Even if
we live to be 80 or 90, or fulfill the count of a hundred years, it is
but a little while and we shall have quitted these dark shores and
landed in the everlasting brightness of endless glory, that is, if we
know the love of Christ, today, and trust in Christ today. We shall go
on and on forever and forever experiencing more and more of this great
Truth of God, "Your love to me was wonderful."

Now let each one answer this question– Can you say, "He loved me and
gave Himself for me"? If not, you are an unhappy man. God make you even
more unhappy until you come and look to Jesus Christ as men looked to
the bronze serpent–and as by their looking they were healed, so by
your looking may you be made to live tonight! Remember that–

"There is life for a look at the Crucified One! There is life at this
moment for thee! Then look, Sinner–look unto Him and be sa ved– Unto
Him who was nailed to the tree."

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 1 SAMUEL 20.

Verse 1. And David fled front Naioth in Ramah, and came and said before
Jonathan, What have I done? What is my iniquity? And what is my sin
before your father, that he seeks my life? David had an enemy upon the
throne and God gave him a friend in the heir to the throne. If you have
an enemy, you have also a friend–God sets the one over against the
other in His Providence. Set the one over against the other in your
thoughts and be you comforted thereby. David might have been very heavy
at heart about Saul and so he was, but Jonathan came in to be the
makeweight on the other side and turn the scale in favor of the son of
Jesse. Of him David enquired, "What is my iniquity? And what is my sin
before your father, that he seeks my life?"

2. And he said unto him, God forbid; you shall not die: behold, my
father will do nothing either great or small, but that he will show it
me: and why should my father hide this thing from me? It is not so. One
admires Jonathan for defending Saul–he will not believe anything bad
of his father. Children should never believe anything evil of their
parents unless it is forced upon them–this rule is a part of the
command, "Honor your father and your mother."

3. And David swore moreover, and said, Your father certainly knows that
I have found grace in your eyes; and he says, Let not Jonathan know
this, lest he be grieved: but truly as the LORD lives, and as your soul
lives, there is but a step between me and death. He wanted Jonathan to
believe the truth, namely, that Saul was seeking to kill him, and that
he was in great danger from the wrath of the king. Therefore he took a
double oath that it was so. It is not for Christians to imitate David
in this respect, for our Lord's command to His disciples is, "Swear not
at all, but let your communication be, Yes, yes; no, no: for whatever
is more than these comes of evil."

4. Then said Jonathan unto David, Whatever your soul desires, I will
even do it for you. Love promises large things. One is reminded, here,
of the love of Christ and of how He says, "Ask what you will, and it
shall be done unto you."

5, 6. And David said unto Jonathan, Behold, tomorrow is the new moon,
and I should not fail to sit with the king at meat: but let me go, that
I may hide myself in the field unto the third day at even: If your
father at all misses me, then say, David earnestly asked leave of me
that he might run to Bethlehem, his city: for there is a yearly
sacrifice there for all the family. The family of David was a godly
household and they had a meeting, not for pleasure, but for
sacrifice–a special family gathering for worship and David must be
there. He spoke no untruth–he did desire to go to Bethlehem.

7, 8. If he say thus, It is well; your servant shall have peace: but if
he is very angry, then be sure that evil is determined by him.
Therefore you shall deal kindly with your servant; for you have brought
your servant into a Covenant of the LORD with you: notwithstanding, if
there is in me iniquity, slay me yourself; for why should you bring me
to your father? These two men had entered into a solemn Covenant before
God that they would be friends for life, so David pleaded with
Jonathan. He was innocent–he knew that he had done no evil and,
therefore, he put it to Jonathan, "If I am what your father thinks me
to be, slay me yourself."

9-11. And Jonathan said, Far be it from you: for if I knew certainly
that evil were determined by my father to come upon you, then would I
not tell you? Then said David to Jonathan, Who shall tell me? Or what
if your father answers you roughly? And Jonathan said unto David, Come,
and let us go out into the field. And they went out both of them into
the field. Quite alone, away from their troops, where they could talk
together without being overheard. These two good men sought private
fellowship and do you not think that if we love Christ, we shall want
to get alone with Him? Shall we not say to Him, "Let us go out into the
field"? Where there is no private devotion, there is no devotion at
all. If we never get alone with Christ, we are altogether strangers
both to Him and also to His love.

12-15. And Jonathan said unto David, O LORD God of Israel, when I have
sounded my father about tomorrow any time, or the third day, and,
behold, if there is good toward David, and I then send not unto you,
and show you; the LORD do so and much more to Jonathan: but if it
pleases my father to do you evil, then I will show you, and send you
away, that you may go in peace: and the LORD be with you, as He has
been with my father. And you shall not only while yet I live show me
the kindness of the LORD, that I die not: but also you shall not cut
off your kindness from my house forever: no, not when the LORD has cut
off the enemies of David, every one from the face of the earth. In
Jonathan's great love, he wished not only to be David's friend,
himself, but that all his children should be in love with the same
valiant hero. Brothers and Sisters, our love to Christ makes us long to
see our children love Him, too. I will not believe that you have any
love to Christ unless you pray that your boys and your girls may also
love Him. Dear children of godly parents, our heart's desire and prayer
to God for you is that you may love your mother's God, and trust your
father's Savior.

16-18. So Jonathan made a Covenant with the house of David, saying, Let
the LORD even require it at the hand of David's enemies. And Jonathan
caused David to swear again, because he loved him: for he loved him as
he loved his own soul. Then Jonathan said to David, Tomorrow is the new
moon: and you shall be missed, because your seat will be empty. David
was not a nobody–if he was away, he was missed. I wish that all
attendants at the house of prayer would remember that when they are
away, they are missed. Perhaps some of you have come, tonight, from
some little chapel where you will be greatly missed. I am not going to
thank you for coming here because I am possibly unconsciously causing
pain to your pastor and I do not want to rob him of one of his sheep.
David's seat is empty, tonight, and he will be missed.

19-23. And when you have stayed three days, then you shall go down
quickly, and come to the place where you did hide yourself when the
business was in hand, and shall remain by the stone Ezel. And I will
shoot three arrows on the side thereof, as though I shot at a mark.
And, behold, I will send a lad, saying, Go, find the arrows. If I
expressly say unto the lad, Behold, the arrows are on this side of you,
take them; then come you: for there is peace to you, and no hurt; as
the LORD lives. But if I say thus unto the young man, Behold, the
arrows are beyond you; go your way: for the LORD has sent you away. And
as touching the matter which you and I have spoken of, behold, the LORD
be between you and me forever. Thus He arranged how to let David know
in case he was in danger. Love is thoughtful. Love would keep its
object out of harm's way. Therefore, as we love any, let us try to
preserve them from sin–let us endeavor to warn them when temptation is
near, that they may not fall by the hand of the enemy.

24-27. So David hid himself in the field: and when the new moon was
come, the king sat him down to eat meat. And the king sat upon his
seat, as at other times, even upon a seat by the wall: and Jonathan
arose, and Abner sat by Saul's side, and

David's place was empty. Nevertheless Saul spoke not anything that day:
for he thought, Something has befallen him, he is not clean; surely he
is not clean. And it came to pass on the morrow, which was the second
day of the month, that David's place was empty: and Saul said unto
Jonathan his son, Why comes not the son of Jesse to meat, neither
yesterday, nor today? David was the son of Jesse, but he was Saul's own
son-in-law, yet, out of contempt, the angry king calls him, "the son of
Jesse."

28-30. And Jonathan answered Saul, David earnestly asked leave of me to
go to Bethlehem: and he said, Let me go, I pray you; for our family has
a sacrifice in the city; and my brother, he has commanded me to be
there: and now, if I have found favor in your eyes, let me get away, I
pray you, and see my brethren. Therefore he comes not unto the king's
table. Then Saul's anger was kindled against Jonathan, and he said unto
him, You son of the perverse rebellious woman, do not I know that you
have chosen the son of Jesse to your own confusion, and unto the
confusion of your mother's nakedness? He was in such a passion that he
began to abuse his own wife, the mother of his own son! In the East, if
you want to sting a man most severely, give evil names to his mother,
and surely, in the West as well, if anyone has anything to say against
a man's mother, it cuts her son to his heart if he is what he ought to
be.

31. For as long as the son of Jesse lives upon the ground, you shall
not be established, nor your kingdom. Therefore now send and fetch him
unto me, for he shall surely die. Saul knew that David, and not
Jonathan, was to succeed him on the throne. He gives Jonathan warning
of that fact, and seeks his rival's life.

32. And Jonathan answered Saul his father, and said unto him, Why shall
he be slain? What has he done? Very reasonable questions, very properly
put.

33-42. And Saul cast a javelin at him to strike him: whereby Jonathan
knew that it was determined of his father to slay David. So Jonathan
arose from the table in fierce anger, and did eat no meat the second
day of the month: for he was grieved for David, because his father had
done him shame. And it came to pass in the morning, that Jonathan went
out into the field at the time appointed with David, and a little lad
with him. And he said unto his lad, Run, find out now the arrows which
I shoot. And as the lad ran, he shot an arrow beyond him. And when the
lad was come to the place of the arrow which Jonathan had shot,
Jonathan cried after the lad, and said, Is not the arrow beyond you?
And Jonathan cried after the lad, Make speed, haste, stay not. And
Jonathan's lad gathered up the arrows, and came to his master. But the
lad knew not anything: only Jonathan and David knew the matter. And
Jonathan gave his artillery unto his lad, and said unto him, Go, carry
them to the city. And as soon as the lad was gone, David arose out of a
place toward the south, and fell on his face to the ground, and bowed
himself three times: and they kissed one another, and wept, one with
another, until David exceeded. And Jonathan said to David, Go in peace,
forasmuch as we have sworn both of us in the name of the LORD, saying,
The LORD be between me and you, and between my seed and your seed
forever. And he arose and departed: and Jonathan went into the city.
Behold the love of Jonathan and David! Here was a brother born for
adversity who clung to his friend in the day of danger, and even
jeopardized his own life that he might defend David. Let us see, here,
a faint emblem of what our great Friend, the Lord Jesus, has done for
us.