Being Teachable
All adults should be open to what God may want
to teach them through the younger generation.
Here's Gene to explain:
Saul had a problem with this.
And we're going to see it illustrated in the life of
what happened here in Jonathan's experience.
1 Samuel 14, and we're going to read
several passages here:
The battle extended beyond Beth-aven,
and the men of Israel were worn out that day,
for Saul had placed the troops under an oath:
"The man who eats food before evening,
before I have taken vengeance on my
enemies is cursed." ...
And let me just simply say:
There is no spiritual fiber to that
statement whatsoever.
That is pure arrogance.
It is purely insensitive and stupid.
It did not come from God.
It came from Saul.
And he's mad. And he's going to put all of his
people under this oath simply because
of what he's feeling.
And so he makes a very unfortunate statement.
And of course, his men, his army--I mean,
he's the king. He's the commanding officer:
...So [we read] none of the troops tasted any food.
Everyone went into the forest...
And here was the temptation:
...[and] there was honey on the ground.
[And] when the troops entered the forest,
they saw the flow of honey, but none of them
ate any of it because they feared the oath. ...
They didn't fear God.
They feared the king.
And they feared the oath of King Saul.
...However, Jonathan had not heard his father
make the troops swear the oath.
And so the story continues:
...He reached out with the end of the
staff he was carrying and [he] dipped it
into the honeycomb.
[And] when he at the honey, he had renewed energy. ...
Which, by the way, an army needs
in the midst of battle.
In the midst of all this. He had renewed energy.
...[And] then, one of the troops said,
[probably with great fear,]
..."Your father made the troops
solemnly swear, 'The man who eats
food today is cursed,' and the troops are exhausted."
Well what happened in this particular situation?
If you go on in the passage,
in 1st Samuel 14:29 and 30, we read that:
Jonathan replied, "My father has
brought trouble to the land. ...
And this was based not just on that
particular statement, that oath.
But he saw his father deteriorating and
making some very foolish decisions.
Samuel is growing spiritually.
Saul was deteriorating.
And his son sees it.
... "My father has brought trouble to the land.
Just look at how I have renewed energy
because I tasted a little honey. ...
It's only common sense that we're in battle,
we need food. And just a little has
given me renewed energy.
...How much better if the troops had
eaten freely today from the plunder
they took from their enemies! ...
It's just common sense, he's saying.
That was not a good decision on my father's part.
...[And] then the slaughter of the Philistines
would have been much greater."
Well what happened when Saul found
out about it?
Well he's still mad.
Of course, his son is involved here,
which makes his statement even more foolish.
Saul declared to him,
"May God punish me and do so severely
if you do not die, Jonathan!" ...
That takes a lot of evil thinking in a
situation like this.
Rather than backing off, dealing with his pride,
dealing with his arrogance,
he's threatening to kill his own son.
But the people realized how
incredibly foolish this was.
...But the people said to Saul,
"Must Jonathan die, who accomplished
such a great deliverance for Israel?
And he had done battle, and of course,
he'd accomplished great things and
God was with him.
...No [they said], as the Lord lives, not a hair of his head
will fall to the ground, for he worked
with God's help today." ...
You see, the people, the men,
the other people in his army saw the foolishness of this
and saw that this was Saul's doing.
This was not God's doing.
And they recognized it through this experience.
And they stated: He worked with God's help today.
...So the people redeemed Jonathan,
and he did not die. ...
In other words, there was a total revolt
against the king.
And against this very foolish decision.
...[And] then Saul gave up the pursuit of the Philistines,
and the Philistines returned to their own territory.
So here we again, let me just state,
that we see Jonathan,
a young man, growing spiritually in his
relationship to God and trusting God.
We see Saul moving in the opposite direction.
And if you go back through that passage,
when you see Jonathan's victories,
you'll see that on at least 3 separate
occasions where he gave honor to God.
He knew he could not achieve this
without God's presence, without God's power.
Saul, on the other hand, was doing this
in his own strength.
And so you see the result of that situation.
The question is:
Why is it often difficult for adults to listen to
and learn from the younger generation?
We have a beautiful illustration,
by the way, of Jonathan in the New Testament
when we look at Timothy--
who was much farther along.
And when Paul wrote 1st Timothy,
he really paid tribute to his youth.
So if you look at 1st Timothy 4:12:
Let no one despise your youth...
Or another translation has: Don't let anyone
look down on you because you're young.
...Let no one despise your youth;
instead, you [Timothy as a young man]
should be an example to the believers in speech,
in conduct, in love, in faith, [and] in purity.
And here we have a beautiful exception,
as it were, in Jonathan, I think,
and then in Timothy--of course who has much more
of God's revelation and knowledge of
God's plan through Jesus Christ.
But let's go to that question for
Reflection and Response.
Why is it often difficult for adults to
learn from a man like Jonathan or from
a young man like Timothy?
To learn from the younger generation?
And basically, I think there's a very basic reason.
It's illustrated in Saul and that's arrogance.
See, arrogance has a way of blurring our judgments.
It has a way of distorting our values.
And that applies, of course, to both youth and to the aged.
Arrogance affects us all.
It can happen to us both.
As we get older, we don't want to
admit our weaknesses.
After all, we're supposed to be strong.
We're older. We're more experienced.
But you see the older we get, if we're not careful,
the more we can justify ourselves
to cover up our weaknesses.
And pride and arrogance sets in.
And we become unteachable if we're not careful.
It happens also to young people.
We see a lot of that in our culture today.
And youth, basically lack experience.
They don't even know what they don't know.
And I remember when I was 40.
I thought I had a lot of answers.
And then I turned 50 and I began to realize
that there's a lot of stuff I don't know--yet.
And it seemed like with every decade in my life,
I became more aware of how much
I didn't know.
And that comes with age and experience.
And God wants us, as we grow older,
to develop a sense of humility and teachability
rather than a sense of arrogance.
So we're all vulnerable--whether we're
young or whether we're old.
And so we have to be very, very careful.
But the Principle here really focuses on adults
because of Saul's attitude towards his son.
So the Principle reads:
All adults should be open to what God may want
to teach them through the younger generation.
And we can learn a lot if we listen,
no matter what the age
of those who are maturing,
obviously, in the Lord Jesus Christ.