9. Evil were determined. Jonathan felt in his heart that David was wrong in his deductions regarding Saul’s attitude. He seemed confident that it was only Saul’s deranged mind that at times made him act like a demon. He could have flatly contradicted David, but inasmuch as the experience affected David in a personal way, he willingly deferred to his friend’s method of determining Saul’s attitude. The future would reveal the truth, and, after all, there could be no harm in following David’s method.
There is a valuable lesson in this experience. Men do not have the same heredity and environment, and consequently do not approach the problems of life in the same way. Each believes his own individual method to be the correct one. The result is ofttimes differences of opinion, contradictions, and recriminations. Hot words are hurled back and forth that separate families, friends, and even lovers. Selfishness mounts up and pride maintains the position taken, whether tenable or not. This chapter presents a striking contrast between Saul’s and Jonathan’s ways of dealing with such situations. Saul, in his impatient tyranny and bigotry, felt that he must be first, and that what he said was correct and final. Anyone disagreeing had to be eliminated, regardless of the means taken to do it. Yet his own son approached life from an entirely different angle. Why the difference between father and son when both had had much the same surroundings and training? Did God illuminate one life and not the other? Was Saul born to be evil, and his son by contrast to possess noble traits of character? Were people required to accept Saul with all his eccentricities, making allowances for all his self-assertiveness and his domineering ways?
The solution to these questions is found in the words of Paul: “to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are” (Rom. 6:16). Because of his free choice, man gives his service, his thoughts, and his outlook on life to either one or the other of two masters—two leaders who represent diametrically opposite standards. Perhaps Saul had served self all during his early youth. Perhaps he had been a problem child in his father’s house, a bully among his associates, but still, like Judas, a born leader. If such be true, it is easy to understand his father’s anxiety when Saul was away from home hunting for the asses. Yet in Saul’s anointing there was abundant proof that God accepted him in spite of his faults and gave him a new heart ( 10:6, 9). But Saul refused to walk in the light of heaven. Jonathan, the son of Saul, on the other hand, chose to follow other interests than those of self. Early in life Jonathan, through prayerful surrender to the opening providences of God, had gradually developed the settled policy of his viewpoint. His approach to life led him gladly to accept David’s suggestion. This experience along with others may have been in David’s mind when he later sang, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity” (Ps. 133:1).
