David and Jonathan

“And Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” I Sam. xviii. i.

THE love of Jonathan and David was not only beautiful in itself, but affords a beautiful illustration of the love-character. Love seeketh not her own.”

Jonathan was next in order of succession to the throne of Israel, and every motive of pride and ambition would urge him, if not to assist his father’s efforts to remove David, at least to do nothing to hinder those efforts. The upright, brave. God-fearing son of a bad father, he may well have felt an honest desire to reign, that he might redeem the family name from the shame put upon it by his father’s tyranny and misgovernment.

Brought up in expectation of the throne, accustomed to think of himself as the heir, forming as so noble

The supreme test
of love.

I Cor. xiiL
5-

I Sam.
xviii. 1-4,

I Sam. XV.
26-28.

iSo Room in tfte 3nn

I Sam.
xviii. 3.

Rom, V. 5.

John xvi.
27.

John xiii. n

a nature must have done many plans for the good of his people, he is suddenly told that the royal line of Saul is set aside.

For this he seems to have had nothing but the word of aged Samuel, but Jonathan knew that Samuel was God’s spokesman to Israel, and that the disinheritance was a message from God.

Then David appears, does his great exploit, and against all the pleadings of self-interest love knit the heart of Jonathan to the heart of David. Jonathan was a mightier conquest for David than the overthrow of boasting Goliath. The very crown of Israel was not a greater trophy than the love of Jonathan.

The most precious gift of God is love — His own love, “For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came from God; “the love of His Son, who,” Having anb 0tf)tv Snterpretattong loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end; “the love of the Spirit, “For the love of the Spirit that ye strive together with me;*’ and precious human love, the tests of which are: ‘Move seeketh not her own;” “love suffereth long and is kind.” Jonathan illustrates the first; David, in his behaviour toward Saul, gives an illustration not to be surpassed [save in the ways of God with man] of the second. It is a unique characteristic of love; nothing else suffers long and is kind. Duty and stoicism can suffer long, but neither can suffer long and be kind*

No one goes far into the secret of the Lord who has not come under the constraining power of love. It is the radical distinction between legal obedience, and gracious obedience.

Conscience, enlightened by the

Rom. XV.
30.

I Cor. xiii.
4, 5.

The power
of love.

2 Cor. V.
14.

io yom m tfie inn

Matt, xxiii.
23.

Matt. XXV.
27.

Luke ii. 49.

Luke ix.
22,

Yet
not 1.”

Gal. ii. 20.

2 Cor. V.
I4» 15.

2 Cor. iv.
5.

laws of God, says ‘’ I ought.” That is the obedience of duty. But the heart glowing with the love of God, says, “I must.” The imperative of love is mightier than the imperative of law.

Under the legal spirit Jonathan might have stepped resignedly aside to make way for David; under the love spirit Jonathan’s passion was to make David king.

The application of this sweet story is obvious. Let me state it in the thought of another. In every human heart there is a throne and a cross. When we come to Christ He is on the cross and self is on the throne. It is the marvel of the Gospel that He saves us by His cross — perfectly, eternally saves us — with no mention of our heartthrone. But even He cannot bless us with God’s fullest, best blessings unless we are willing, for dear love’s sake, to change places — to put anb 0ti)tt interpretations;

Christ on the throne, and self on the cross. And only the love-power of the Holy Spirit can win the victory here. Then the blessed life begins.

Much has been written about David’s ‘* profound policy” during these years of waiting for the throne to which God had anointed him. Wisdom indeed there was, but wisdom inspired by loving insight. Hunted like a ^’ partridge ‘’ on the mountains of Israel, driven outside the land amongst the Gentiles; his life attempted again and again by the king’s hand, naught moved David to bitterness nor resentment. In all literature there is nothing nobler, nor more touching, than David’s two addresses to Saul. Even the king’s morose spirit yielded for the moment to David’s unconquerable sweetness.

The gift of Christ is but the supreme proof of God’s love to-Rom. viii.

I Sam.
xxvi. 20.

I Sam.
xxiv. 8-15.

I Sam.
xxvi. 17-20.

The love
of God.

io Hoom in tfje 3nn

Gen. i. 26,

Gen. ii. 8.
Gen. iii. 6.

Gen. iii. 8,
9.

Gen. vi. 5,
I Pet. iii.
20.

Gen. ix.
1-8.

ward man. The history of the race is the record of the divine long-suffering and kindness. The dispensations have been but successive provings of the patience of the divine love toward the whole race.

Creating man in innocency, and creating a paradise of beauty for his home, man disobeyed his Creator at the first temptation. What that sin brought down was not divine wrath, but divine compassion. The Lord God Himself came down into the garden to seek and to save His ungrateful and sinful creatures. Again the race, knowing good and evil, chose evil rather than good. So vile did man become that mercy to unborn generations demanded the all but complete extermination of humanity. But even then “the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, one hundred and twenty years.”

Saving one family through the flood, God put the earth Into the anb (0tfier Snterpretationss hands of that family, and their descendants, to govern for Him. But once more man showed the Incurable evil of the natural heart, and also the inexhaustible love of God. Instead of utterly destroying the race. He divided it by the barrier of language, and called out, in Abraham, another family.

The history of Israel is but one long demonstration of the evil of fallen man, and of the fact that God will suffer long and be kind. Even the crucifixion of His Son but brought forth new proof of the unchangeable love of God, for to the Jews was the Gospel first sent.

And the second coming of Christ is delayed only because He is” longsufifering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.’^

Gen. xi.
1-9.

Gen. xii. i.

Isa. V. i-16=

2 Chr.
xxxvi.
14-16.

Acts iii.
26.

Acts i. 8.

2 Pet. iii. 9.

^0 3loom in tfje 3nn

The greatest thing.

I Cor. xiii.
13.

Better than
all best
things.