1 Samuel 26:1-28:25, John 11:1-54, Psalms 117:1-2, Proverbs 15:22-23
Today is the 20th day of May welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is a joy and a pleasure to be here with you today as we move forward one more step taking us one step further away from the beginning of the year one step closer to the end of the year because the journey we are on lasts a year and is life-changing because the Bible in a year touches everything about us. And that should be apparent by now. May 20th. We’ve already been through an awful lot this year and the Scriptures in our lives makes such a difference in pointing the direction that we should go. And, so, let’s take that next step. We’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this…this week and we’re working our way through the book of first Samuel and now we are firmly ensconced in the story between David and King Saul. Today, First Samuel 26, 27, and 28.
Commentary:
Okay. So, we…I mean…pretty dramatic reading today, both old and new Testaments. So, in first Samuel again, Saul is after David. He’s pursuing him to destroy him again. David, has an opportunity to kill the King but spares the king and then exposes the king and exposes the deficiencies of the people who are keeping the king alive by calling out and just showing like, “I could have killed you again. You could be dead right now but your hearing my voice because I spared you. So, once again Saul is exposed here. Part of the plot against David that Saul is whipping up is that David wants to destroy the king…the king…that David wants the king dead. But David was never plotting against the king and this keeps showing itself. And the thing is, the people are seeing, right? So, like Saul’s got 3000 elite warriors who are loyal to the king in the kingdom but they’re seeing all of this, people are talking about this. In the end though, like after this episode David is like, “you know what…I mean…I have to be on my game 100% of the time. If I mess up one time, we could all be dead. He’s not gonna stop.” And, so, David defects to the Philistines, actually becoming like a Philistine with his allegiance…his allegiance to king Achish of Gath. And, so, the king gives David a city to take his people to and that’s where they settle. And, so, for over a year then, King Saul’s not going to pursue David into Philistine territory like crossing an international border. So, David finds some…some safety. Meanwhile the Philistines are gonna go to battle, and a big battle with the Israelites and David is expected to go into the battle as a Philistine, which he agrees to do. Meanwhile, Saul is a little bit freaking out because God won’t answer him. And, so, he tries to re-create the structure that he had at one point with the final judge of Israel, the prophet of Israel, even the leader of Israel, Samuel, who has died. Saul goes to spiritist and calls of Samuel from the dead. And this seems to be actually Samuel coming up from the dead, not like some kind of demon or something impersonating Samuel. The Bible is saying this is Samuel, who has essentially one final prophecy for Saul and that prophecy is that…that Saul and his sons will be with Samuel in the realm of the dead in one day. So, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow’s reading to find out if that is true. What a strange showdown we have. We have Saul who has pursued David all this time to kill him, who was not successful, but David, in order to preserve his life has had to defect to the Philistines who are now expecting that he will be in battle against Saul. And meanwhile Saul’s essentially told that he’s got less than a day to live. So, yeah, some drama building for us in first Samuel.
Now, in the book of John there’s also drama building. It’s the story of Lazarus being raised up from the dead and its a very, very famous story. And, so we won’t go into all of the story right now. Let’s just kind of skip to the end. Lazarus is raised from the dead after having been in the tomb for four days. That would cause a ripple effect, right, of information spreading throughout all the social networks of the day. Obviously, there weren’t social networks online. Like we understand that everybody has some type of social network - the people that you know. This would spread all around very quickly. And Bethany just being 2 miles from Jerusalem, word would’ve gotten to Jerusalem very quickly. And it did. And it caused a meeting of the Sanhedrin. It brought together the people who were most studied in the law and most studied in the how…how to govern the people because of the law, the Mosaic law. They got together and decided that if this guy Jesus thinks he can run around raising people from the dead, then they’re going to kill him. So, we are kinda getting set up here for a couple of showdowns in the old and the New Testament. Of course, in the New Testament we know the story of the gospel, but let’s understand that the territory we are moving into in the book of John, this is the last time we will be moving through this territory. And, so, let’s remember that as…as we give it the honor that it’s due.
Prayer:
Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for another day that You have allowed Your word to come into our lives and…and…and just work in our minds, work in our hearts, challenging our motivations, and allowing us to see that we can… we can read these texts and they can be thousands of years old but underneath of them all the motives of the human heart is the same. So, we thank You that You guide and direct us as we look into the lives of those who have gone before. Come Holy Spirit. Continue this work of transformation in us, this work of sanctification in us as we continue to open ourselves fully to Your will and Your ways and Your direction, to Your comfort, to Your discipline in our lives. We open ourselves fully to You because we trust You. Come Jesus we pray. In Your name we ask. Amen.
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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.