The decisions each of us will make today can certainly have an immediate impact on our

circumstances, but they can also affect events, days, or years from now, even into future generations.

Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg points us to a difficult but crucial decision that Jonathan,

the son of King Saul, had to make. Alistair is teaching from 1 Samuel chapter 20, beginning with

verse 12. You will notice that we had ended at verse 10 and verse 11, and Jonathan said verse 11 to David,

come let us go out into the field, so they both went out into the field, verse 18, then Jonathan said

to him, tomorrow is the new moon, and you will be missed because your seat will be empty.

So why then verses 12 to 17? For myself I take it that it is a purposeful interruption. In other words,

that the writer of this story is more concerned at this point in our reading, for us to understand what he

now conveys in verses 12 to 17, then it is for us to be able to chase immediately to verse 18 and

to the resolution of the story. All of the material that we're dealing with is historical, and all of it

is theological in that it is teaching us, giving us information and truth about God. But in one sense,

this section 12 to 17 is particularly so, and it is a reminder to us that when we read passages

like this, we are reading them in such a way that we might learn about God and his unfolding purposes.

And in the last occasion, we realized that David in dealing with the predicament that was before

him in terms of Saul's desire to murder him was addressed by him finding security in the

covenant love of God. And now as we come to this section, we discover that Jonathan's need

for encouragement, not in view of the immediacy of things, but in view of taking the long view,

his need is exactly the same and is to be met in the exact same way. Some of you years ago, like me,

will have looked into a book written by Susie Welsh, who was the wife or is the wife, I'm not sure,

of Jack Welsh of GE. And she wrote a book about decision-making, which I recall was entitled 10, 10, 10.

The thesis was straightforward. When you make a decision, she says, it is important that you think

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