1 Samuel 18

1 Samuel 18:1

THE OF DAVID AND 1 Samuel 18:1HUGH BLACK in his volume entitled, “Friendship”, speaking of the persons named in this text, remarks, “The classic instance of David and Jonathan represents the typical friendship. They met, and at the meeting knew each other to be nearer than kindred. By subtle elective affinity they felt that they belonged to each other. Out of all the chaos of the time and the disorder of their lives, there arose for these two souls a new and beautiful world, where there reigned peace, and love, and sweet content. It was the miracle of the death of self. Jonathan forgot his pride, and David his ambition. It was as the smile of God which changed the world to them. One of them it saved from the temptations of a squalid court, and the other from the sourness of an exile’s life.

Jonathan’s princely soul had no room for envy or jealousy. David’s frank nature rose to meet the magnanimity of his friend.“In the kingdom of love there was no disparity between the king’s son and the shepherd boy. Such a gift as each gave and received is not to be bought or sold. It was the fruit of the innate nobility of both; it softened and tempered a very trying time for both. Jonathan withstood his father’s anger to shield his friend; David was patient with Saul for his son’s sake. They agreed to be true to each other in their difficult position.

Close and tender must have been the bond, which had such fruit in princely generosity and mutual loyalty of soul. Fitting was the beautiful lament, when David’s heart was bereaved at tragic Gilboa, “I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women’.

Love is always wonderful, a new creation, fair and fresh to every loving soul. It is the miracle of spring to the cold dull earth.”I want to take this classic instance to illustrate and emphasize the ground, the growth and the godliness of friendship.THE GROUND OF One who has given himself to the study of this subject by either extended observation, or investigation of the Scriptures, is led to feel thatUnselfishness is the first essential! History furnishes few such instances of unselfishness as the Scriptures record to the credit of David and Jonathan. When Saul, the ambitious, godless man, saw Jonathan voluntarily resign his prospect of crown and throne in David’s behalf:“Then Saul’s anger was kindled against Jonathan, and he said unto him, Thou son of the perverse rebellious woman, do not I know that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own confusion, and unto the confusion of thy mother’s nakedness?“For as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom”.There are instances out of number in which men have made sacrifices for their friends. There are exceptional examples of laying down life for friendship’s sake. Jesus referred to these latter, saying, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”.

And Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans said, “Scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die” (1 Samuel 5:7).But, if greater unselfishness than that of laying down a life were possible, Jonathan manifested it when, out of pure admiration for his character, and a clear conviction that David was the anointed of God, he turned over to him, without consideration, crown and throne. The same spirit of unselfishness continues to form the true ground of friendship.Trumbull says, “Friendship is to be valued for what there is in it, not for what can be gotten out of it * * To seek friendship for its utility is as futile as to seek the end of a rainbow for its bag of gold.

A true friend is always useful in the highest sense, but we should beware of thinking of our friends as brother members of a mutual benefit association, with its periodical demands, and threats of suspension for non-payment of dues.”Solomon says, “The rich hath many friends”, but one of the acknowledged curses of riches is at this very point. It is so difficult for people that possess them to tell whether they are loved for their own sake, or patronized for profit. If you would be a true friend to any one of your fellows, sound the recesses of your heart, search them for the spirit of selfishness, and call upon the Son of God to cast out that spirit, as He cast the demons out of the man of Gadara. There is no true ground of friendship where selfishness reigns.Again, similar aspirations are equally fundamental to friendship. And let us never imagine for a moment that Jonathan was without ambition, and surrendered his inheritance because, like Esau, he esteemed a mess of pottage more. Let us never imagine for a minute that Jonathan was without spirit and surrendered his throne, as Charles the Fifth abdicated his, because he preferred ease to responsibility.

When, on one occasion, Jonathan went to David in the wood, he said unto him, “Fear not: for the hand of Saul my father shall not find thee; and thou shalt be the king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee” (2 Samuel 23:17). What was that but voicing his ambition?

What was that but discovering his spirit? And when, in time of battle, was Jonathan ever wanting? I do not believe that these men could have dwelt together in such love had one been a spirited, ambitious seeker of office, and the other a shiftless ease-loving lad. The old Prophet Amos puts a question of occasion, “Can two walk together except they be agreed”? (Amos 3:3).Once when Jowett was writing to Stanley he said, “I earnestly hope that the friendship which commenced between us many years ago, may be a blessing to last us through life. I feel if it is to be so, we must both go onward, otherwise the tear and wear of life, and the having travelled over each other’s minds will be sufficient to break it off”. When Jowett said, “I feel that if it is to be so, we must both go onward,” he emphasized the very point in question.

The circumstance that friends must be filled with similar aspirations accounts for the fact that the truly great of earth have so few friends. Their admirers may be, often are, a host; but their friends, those who have been admitted into the inner sanctuary of the life, those who have been communed with, counselled with, honored and loved, are small enough in number.It is reported of Socrates that when he was building for himself a house in Athens, his plans called for a very small building.

An observer questioned him as to why a man of his eminence did not put up a dwelling of better proportion, and one more suitable to his dignity, to which Socrates replied, “I should think myself happy to see even so narrow a habitation filled with real friends”. Dr. Samuel Johnson commenting on this incident said, “Such was the opinion of this great master of human life concerning the unfrequency of the union of minds as might deserve the name of friendship, that among the multitudes whom vanity or curiosity, civility or veneration, crowded about him, he did not expect that very spacious apartments would be necessary to contain all who should regard him with sincere kindness, or adhere to him with steady fidelity.” And when we remember how few there were in Socrates’ times that entertained in any degree the lofty sentiments that made his name immortal, we can understand why he despaired of ever filling a great house with the trusted, since similar aspirations are fundamental to friendship.But as one goes on in the study of David’s and Jonathan’s fellowship he sees that he must account not only for the ground thereof, but also forTHE GROWTH OF It was friendship at first sight. I believe you will find that many of those who become the fastest friends feel a mutual drawing in the first meeting. I recall perfectly how many years ago now a young Baptist minister came into my study at Lafayette, Ind. He was small of stature, and as I looked into his honest eyes, and felt the touch of his hearty hand, I realized that I was face to face with a friend.

The years that have passed, nearly forty now, have not so much deepened that impression as they have established it, and today, if I walked in darkness, and felt the necessity of a friend who would bring me at once dependable cheer and counsel, there are few people on earth I would prefer to have called to my assistance.Friendship is fed also by familiarity. On the day of their first meeting, Jonathan saw much in David to admire, and David found equal occasion to love Jonathan.

But, doubtless, the close fellowship of the succeeding days gave occasion for friendship to strike deeper root still. There is an old English proverb, “Before you make a friend, eat a peck of salt with him”, by which is meant merely, familiarize yourself with his character. Nothing short of time is a sufficient test of what may be in a man. I was impressed afresh with this fact in reading a few days ago “The Life of Moody”, compiled by George T. B. Davis. The article by Dr. James Buckley asked this question of Moody’s ministry, “How are we going to prove that any man has the Spirit of God?

Will oratorical preaching? Will pathetic preaching? Will persuasive preaching? Is the power of discerning spirits left in the church? Have not some of the most famous evangelists the world ever saw gone into the depths of iniquity? Did not the author of that wondrous hymn, “Come ye sinners poor and needy,” spend ten years in depravity and go mourning all his days after he emerged from it? Have we not in our day absolutely known them to renounce the doctrines they held when they were most prosperous as evangelists, and with brazen faces confess that in the midst of their greatest efforts for sinners, they did not believe what they were supposed to believe? How shall a man prove that he has the Spirit of God?

He must prove it by a long career, by a spotless reputation, by meeting men face to face as well as upon the rostrum; and the men who have slept with him, and travelled with him, and prayed with him, and suffered in evil report as well as in good report, these men must stand up and be able to declare, in the face of God, and in the presence of man, that this man, all through this period lived as he professed, prayed as he professed, preached as he professed, denied himself as he professed, and then if God gives such a wondrous death to a man as this, we have all the evidence, probable and conclusive, that he was a man of God”. And we have come to feel that Buckley is right, and that true friendship can only grow, as it ought to grow, as one increases in familiarity with its subject.We believe also that friendship is strengthened by storms. In the day of prosperity it is more difficult to decide who one’s real lovers are than it is in the days of adversity.Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens is an illustration of this point which has been practically repeated in hundreds of instances. You will remember that while Timon was prosperous, crowds of flatterers followed him everywhere, just as the multitudes followed Jesus when they found that He could feed the thousands. Timon wasted his substance in presents and hospitality, and succeeded in surrounding himself with parasites who loudly professed their friendship, but when adversity came, they treated him as the same kind of a crowd treated the prodigal son, and in his loneliness and degradation he cursed the very name of “friendship”, and denied that there was any such thing. But the trouble with Timon was that he misunderstood the whole subject.

He had never realized that unselfishness on the part of both subjects to this fine sentiment was absolutely essential, and that the man who is playing host to human parasites that he may hear himself praised is as unworthy of love as his flatterers are incapable of feeling it. Hence Shakespeare wrote. “He that loves to be flattered is worthy o’ the flatterer”.

Set over against Shakespeare’s Timon, Hall Caine’s Bondman, and, in the latter, you have a story of friendship which the fiercest storms only sufficed to strengthen. Jason when he came to know Michael truly was made acquainted with him by their mutual sufferings, and the work that was killing Michael in the sulphur prisons of Iceland was making him so dear to Jason that he came to be willing to die in his stead, and when opportunity offered, he did die willingly, and with the flush of conscious victory upon his fine face, because he knew that when the fiendish anger of Jorgen Jorgenson had spent itself by spilling his blood that Michael Sunlocks, the sufferer, and the woman of their mutual love and the little babe, would be safe. Nothing short of such suffering as Michael Sunlocks passed through would have sufficed to grow in the heart of the great Jason such friendship for him. And one of the comforts for any man who is passing through trial is that it is a testing of friendships. If he is afflicted in body, if he has met with financial reverses, if he has been made the subject of needless persecutions, if he has lost his loved ones and sits in bereavement, his true friends will then take occasion to show the hand of help, and the heart of holy love.You remember that Jesus had fallen beneath the weight of His cross, when Simon, the black man, came to His assistance; and when we have fainted beneath the load of life, our true friends will be found at our side, for it is true as Will T. Hale has sung, “Though we are worn and weary from some loss, Yet on life’s journey many friends there be—The Simons who assist to bear the cross Along the stony road to Calvary.”Solomon long since expressed this same fact in his proverb, “A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity”.A few words on theG OF Pand I have finished.It binds a man to his brother. The longer men study the Word of God, the more emphasis they lay upon brotherly love, the more thoroughly they believe that religion expresses itself there. We have come upon a time when Cain’s question, “Am I my brother’s keeper”? is regarded as the very antithesis of all true Christian sentiment.A few days since I was asked this question, “Do you love people?” If I did not love people, I should be compelled to call into question my profession.John, you will remember, in his Epistle said, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8).True friendship compels men to feel after God. One needs only to look back a little to see how fleeting and perishable are the friendships of earth. Many of those we loved ten years ago are removed far from us, and we do not so much as send them a letter any more.

Some have sinned and brought shame to themselves, and we think of them only to feel disappointment; others have gone to fill the grave, and one must find, as he grows older, that God and God alone is the only abiding Friend. There is no man so much to be pitied as the man who comes to the end of life and has to put out his hand for a last good-bye to every friend of earth, and in that hour is unable to say, “God is my friend”.When Seneca went to comfort Polybius, he encouraged him to bear his afflictions patiently because he was the emperor’s favorite, adding, “You have little reason to complain since Caesar is your friend”. The man who knows that he is a favorite of the Heavenly Father, and that the Emperor of the universe is his Friend, has in that consciousness a cordial for life, and a conquest over death.