Join us for a captivating narrative that combines scripture with personal insight. As we navigate through Saul’s relentless pursuit of David, we uncover profound lessons on maintaining spiritual integrity amidst chaos. Discover how staying in the Word of God and consistent prayer can shield us from ‘spiritual yo-yos’ in our own lives. Plus, hear a personal story of how an unexpected event led to a life-changing commitment to daily Bible reading.
Welcome to Add Bible, an audio daily devotion from the Ezra Project. We join Allen J. Huth as he shares Bible passages and comments from over 30 years of his personal Bible reading journals.
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Today we are in 1 Samuel chapter 19. We’ll listen in to Faith Comes By Hearing’s recording of all 24 verses of 1 Samuel chapter 19.
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1 Samuel 19 And Saul spoke to Jonathan his son, and to all his servants, that they should kill David. But Jonathan, Saul’s son, delighted much in David.
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And Jonathan told David, “‘Saul, my father seeks to kill you. Therefore be on your guard in the morning.’ Stay in a secret place and hide yourself, and I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are, and I will speak to my father about you, and if I learn anything I will tell you. And Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul his father, and said to him, Let not the king sin against his servant David, because he has not sinned against you, and because his deeds have brought good to you. For he took his life in his hand, and he struck down the Philistine. And the Lord worked a great salvation for all Israel. You saw it and rejoiced. Why then will you sin against innocent blood by killing David without cause?
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And Saul listened to the voice of Jonathan. Saul swore, As the Lord lives, he shall not be put to death. And Jonathan called David, and Jonathan reported to him all these things. And Jonathan brought David to Saul, and he was in his presence as before. And there was war again. And David went out and fought with the Philistines and struck them with a great blow, so that they fled before him. Then a harmful spirit from the Lord came upon Saul as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand. And David was playing the liar. And Saul sought to pin David to the wall with the spear, but he eluded Saul so that he struck the spear into the wall. And David fled and escaped that night. Saul sent messengers to David’s house to watch him that he might kill him in the morning. But Michael, David’s wife, told him,
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If you do not escape with your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.
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So Michael let David down through the window, and he fled away and escaped. Michael took an image and laid it on the bed and put a pillow of goat’s hair at its head and covered it with the clothes. And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, He is sick. Then Saul sent the messengers to see David, saying, Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may kill him. And when the messengers came in, behold, the image was in the bed, with the pillow of goat’s hair at its head. Saul said to Michael, Why have you deceived me thus, and let my enemy go, so that he has escaped?
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And Michael answered Saul, He said to me, Let me go, why should I kill you?
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Now David fled and escaped, and he came to Samuel at Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and lived at Naoth. And it was told Saul, Behold, David is at Naoth in Ramah. Then Saul sent messengers to take David. And when they saw the company of the prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing his head over them, the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied. When it was told Saul, he sent other messengers, and they also prophesied. And Saul sent messengers again the third time, and they also prophesied. Then he himself went to Ramah, and came to the great well that is in Siqu, and he asked, Where are Samuel and David? And one said, Behold, they are at Naoth in Ramah. And he went there to Naoth in Ramah. And the Spirit of God came upon him also. And as he went, he prophesied until he came to Naoth in Ramah. And he too stripped off his clothes, and he too prophesied before Samuel, and lay naked all that day and all that night. Thus it is said, Is Saul also among the prophets?
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Back in 1983, when I read this chapter, I wrote, Saul seeks to kill David. David, saved by Jonathan and Michael, goes to Samuel. And then I wrote, Saul gets Spirit of God a second time. I will come back to that thought in a moment, but let’s look at my journal from 2002. Saul becomes David’s enemy. Why? Because the Lord was with him. Remember that back in chapter 18? He behaved wisely. He was successful. And sometimes, even when we do the right things, another is jealous or wants to cause us harm. And in 2007, I wrote, why is Saul consumed with killing David? And again, we go back to chapter 18, verse 28. Saul knew the Lord was with David and that his daughter loved him. And then Saul was even more afraid of David. And then Saul was David’s enemy continually. The evil spirit in Saul couldn’t stop God’s spirit in David. Saul was double-minded. He had a hard time staying consistent with the Lord. Jonathan and Michael, Saul’s kids, both loved David and intervened on his behalf. Even Samuel the prophet and God protected David from Saul. Where do we go for help and protection? Remember in a few earlier chapters in 1 Samuel, I asked the question, does the Spirit of the Lord come and go? Well, we’re seeing in Saul’s life that that certainly appears to be the case. Let’s look at a couple of verses in chapter 19. Verse 9 says, Then a harmful spirit from the Lord came upon Saul. That’s the part of the chapter when he throws the spear and tries to pin David to the wall, but David escapes. And this evil spirit just must be consuming Saul because all he wants to do is kill David. Though before it says that harmful spirit came upon Saul, in verse 6 it says, as the Lord lives, he shall not be put to death. So Saul is just completely double-minded, isn’t he? And then at the end of the chapter, when he’s trying to find David, and he ends up in Naomoth in Ramah, it says, And the Spirit of God came upon him. So in this very chapter, both a harmful spirit comes upon Saul, and the Spirit of God comes upon Saul. Now I certainly don’t want that spiritual yo-yo happening in my life, do you? So I asked the question earlier in one of my journals, Where do we go for help and protection? If you’re experiencing an evil spirit in your life, and then experiencing the Spirit of God in your life, how can we stop the spiritual yo-yo? I believe it’s just exactly what you’re doing. Staying in the Word of God and praying. Staying consistent with these AdBible podcasts. And if this is good for you, that’s great, but even opening your Bible and reading Scripture on a regular basis will help prevent the spiritual yo-yo. And then staying close to God, like we learned in chapters past in this great book of 1 Samuel. David was staying close to the Lord, and the Lord was staying close to David. And another answer might be in a weird way right here in this chapter. We see at the end that every time Saul sent people to chase after David, they ended up prophesying before the Lord. So let’s talk about what is prophesying, and is that part of an answer for us? Prophesying, according to my footnote in my ESV study Bible, is prayer and praise to God. Prayer and praise to God is another preventative measure from the spiritual yo-yo. So I don’t know how much time you’re spending praying to God beyond just listening to these AdBible podcasts, but I hope from time to time that you are spending time in prayer and also in praise. And I don’t know about you, but I find it hard in a way to praise God on my own. So I really enjoy going to church and fellowshipping with fellow Christian believers and praising God in a worship service on Sundays or Saturday nights. So I encourage you to do that as well. These things, I believe, will help us prevent the spiritual yo-yo in our lives. Father, none of us want a spirit of harm or an evil spirit to come upon us. Lord, we pray for your Holy Spirit protection. Put a shield about us that no spirit like that can come upon our lives. We pray, Lord, that your spirit will rest in our hearts and in our lives. And we will spend time with you, getting closer to you, in your word, in prayer and in praise. And that we will, by that, stay close to you Thank you, Lord, for those gifts. In Jesus’ name, amen. Thanks for listening to AdBible today. You might wonder how I became a daily Bible reader. When I was 15 years old, a buddy and me stole his father’s car. We could steal his father’s car because his father was in Vietnam, serving in the war. So he was never home. So we took the car that day. Neither one of us with a driver’s license. And we took off out east of Colorado Springs on a dirt road. We were flying down this dirt road at 60 miles an hour. And he lost control of the car. We began to spin and we were going down the road, fishtailing, and he spun the wheel of the car, 60 miles an hour. The car tumbled, crushed the top, tucked the wheels under, totaled the car. I was on a dirt road. I don’t know if I was thrown out of the car or crawled out of the car, but I looked at that car and I thought, am I even alive? Am I broken? Am I bleeding everywhere? And I began to pat myself down, and I felt like I was okay. So I stood up, and I was uninjured, amazingly. The sheriff came to draw up the accident. He said, it’s a miracle you guys are alive. I got home that night, went down into my bedroom. My mother came to me and said, you ought to thank God you’re alive. I was laying on my bed, and I was thinking about the day’s activities. And I just thought, wow, I could have been dead today. I wasn’t the driver. I was the passenger. I wasn’t in control. But God was. At that moment, I figured out at 15 years old, God could take my life any time. He could have that day. So as I laid there, I thought, okay, you could take my life any day. So you saved my life today for a reason. For whatever reason that is, I’m going to live for you and that reason. As I said that, I heard a voice say to me, there’s a Bible on your bookshelf. Get it down and read it. I must have heard something, because I got up, I went over to the bookshelf, and I pulled down a Bible. I opened it to the first page, just like I would any other book, and I began to read God’s Word. I read Genesis chapter 1. The next day I read Genesis chapter 2. The next day I read Genesis chapter 3. And a chapter a day, I began to read God’s Word at 15 years old. If you do that, by the way, it’ll take you about three and a half years to finish reading the Bible a chapter a day. And that’s a good plan. So that’s how I became a daily Bible reader. And when I finished going through the Bible the first time, at 18 years or so, I just started over because I thought that’s what Christians did was read their Bibles every day. So that’s how I became a daily Bible reader. Thanks for listening to AddBible today. I was sitting outside an ice cream store with my wife and a pastor and his wife and children in our hometown. A couple walked by and overheard our conversation and asked if I was a pastor. I said no. But the pastor I was with asked them what church they attended. They named their church, and he said, I know he speaks there every first Sunday of the year. They looked me over, and the woman said to her husband, he’s the Bible guy. She turned to me and said, because of your message, he started reading his Bible this year. So to pastors listening, that’s what will happen if you invite us to come and share in your church. More of your people will read the Bible. If you want that, contact us at EzraProject.net. We know only about 10% of your people are daily Bible readers. After an Ezra Project message, about two-thirds commit to daily Bible reading. Reach out to us at EzraProject.net and let’s talk about increasing Bible reading in your church. 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