Tues.’s Devo - Victory

Read: 1 Samuel 14:1-52; John 7:31-53; Psalm 109:1-31; Proverbs 15:5-7 Israel was still fighting the Philistines. Saul and his 600 men were camped at Gibeah. Jonathan took his armor-bearer to scout out where the Philistines were hiding. He didn’t tell anyone what he was doing. They found a small outpost of Philistines up on a cliff. Jonathan was ready to fight them whether there was a few or many because God was with him. His armor bearer was totally supportive of whatever he wanted to do. Jonathan came up with a plan. They would show themselves to the Philistines and if they asked them to come up to where they were, they would know God was going to give them the victory, but if they said they would come down to them, they would know to run. *** The Philistines told them to come up so they could teach then a lesson. That backfired on them. Jonathan and his armor-bearer climbed up and killed all 20 of them. This caused a break-through in the Spirit and the Philistines that were in the camp panicked. God shook the ground with an earthquake and they were terrified. The Philistines scattered killing each other as they went. *** Meanwhile, back at Saul’s camp, they did a roll call to see who had caused this great occurrence and found that Jonathan and his armor-bearer were missing. They rushed out to the fight and saw what was happening. Even those who had defected to the Philistines were now returning to fight for Israel. It was a great victory for Israel that day. *** Saul’s army fought the whole day and were exhausted. Saul had put them under a curse if they ate anything all day. Jonathan hadn’t been there to hear the command so he ate some honey he found in the forest and was revived. When he tried to give some to his men, they told him about the curse. Jonathan thought it was a foolish command because they needed their strength to fight. *** At the end of the day, Saul build an altar to sacrifice to the Lord. Saul wanted to go back out and fight all night, but the priest said they should ask God first. God wouldn’t answer so they knew something was wrong. They cast lots and it fell on Jonathan. Jonathan admitted he had eaten honey because he didn’t know about the curse Saul had put on them to not eat. Saul said Jonathan had to die, but the men saved him. *** They didn’t continue to fight but went home. Saul had victory against his enemies on every side for years. He continued to fight the Philistines and and draft every able man into his army. *** In John the people began to believe he was the Messiah because of all the miracles he did. The priests sent the Temple guards to arrest Jesus but they listened to his sermons. Jesus told them that he was only going to be with them for a little while longer, then he was going back to the one who sent him. They wouldn’t be able to find him then. They were so intrigued with his message, they didn’t arrest him. *** On the last day of the festival, the priests would do a water libation where six priests went down to the pool of Siloam and brought back pitchers of water and poured it around the altar. Jesus stood up and proclaimed that if anyone was thirsty, they could come to him because he was the living water. When he did this, there was much debate whether he was the Messiah or not. *** When the temple guards returned without Jesus, they told the very upset priests and Pharisees that no one spoke like Jesus did. The religious leaders mocked the guards for being afraid to arrest Jesus. They told them they were foolish, but they were the foolish ones. Nicodemus suggested they should give Jesus a trial before they convicted him. *** Lord, thank you for sending us Jesus. May we remember how hard the ground was for him when we complain about our circumstances. May we count it joy to suffer for the sake of Christ.