Very often we find among the people of God today that there is a recognition of a difficulty, but no power to deal with the situation—a recognition, perhaps, that there is something wrong in our lives; a recognition, perhaps, that the enemy has taken that which rightfully belongs to the Lord; a recognition that things are creeping in which are not according to the mind of God. Yet there is no power, it seems, to deal with the situation. Here in 1 Samuel 14 we find a young man by the name of Jonathan. We are not told how old he was, but we find him taking the thousand men that were delivered to him and smiting the garrison of the Philistines.
I say to the young people, and especially to the young brothers here, this should be an encouragement to your heart and to mine. Jonathan evidently was not concerned with the number of men that he had to deal with; he went out on his own with the thousand men which were delivered to him and gained the victory. The power of the Lord is still there! So, do not be discouraged by the fact that you see failure all around you. We own it. You will see failure in others; you will see failure in your brethren; you will see failure in your fellow young people; and, most of all, you will see failure in yourself. But that should not discourage us, because God has given us the ways and means of dealing with that. And, if there is a true heart and self-judgment before God, then He delights to give the power to go out and deal with the difficulty or problem.
Notice what happened here. Jonathan did not tell anyone about the victory. The Philistines heard of it without any problem. “Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, Let the Hebrews hear.” What was the result? “All Israel heard that Saul had smitten a garrison of the Philistines.” Sometimes when you go out and do something for the Lord, someone else tries to take the credit for it. Here we find that a man who did not have the energy himself, who did not have the mind of the Lord or the spiritual power to go out and deal with the situation, when his son went out and did it, he takes the credit. We often find that happening in the things of God. I believe that this is a category that we need to be careful of — a man who would take the credit to himself for that which others have done. Let us see that we do not fall into that category.
On the other hand, we do not find that Jonathan raised his voice to try and set the record straight. Never try to defend yourself. I can still remember an old brother saying that over and over again to us, “Never defend yourself!” Jonathan just goes on with the Lord, content to leave what he had done for the Lord’s approval. In the day in which we live, we find men making a great show of things, symbolized here by the blowing of a trumpet, and sometimes that creeps into the church of God. Sometimes there is more outward show than there is spiritual power underneath. Here was a young man who was content to act for the Lord, and he did not worry about who heard about it or how they heard about it; he left it for the Lord to vindicate him.
W. J. Prost (from a young people’s address, 1985)