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Today’s Scriptures

Today’s Bible reading plans include:

Ready – 1 Samuel 19:11-23
Set – 1 Samuel 19; Matthew 4
Go! – 1 Samuel 19; 1 Chronicles 7; Psalms 59; Matthew 4

1 Samuel 19:11-23
¹¹ Saul dispatched some of his officers to watch David’s house so that they could kill him the next day. David’s wife Michal warned him.

Michal: If you don’t save yourself tonight, tomorrow morning you’ll be killed.

¹² So Michal lowered David down through the window, and he escaped. ¹³ Then she laid a large idol on the bed, made it a wig of goat’s hair, and covered it with clothes. ¹⁴ When Saul’s officers came to take David to the king, she told them, “He’s sick.”

¹⁵ Hearing this report, Saul ordered his officers to return and see David for themselves. He would not be deterred.

Saul: Even if you have to carry him to me in his bed, do it so I can kill him.

¹⁶ When the officers returned, they threw back the blankets and, instead of David, they discovered the idol with its goat-hair wig in the bed. So they took Michal to Saul.

Saul (to Michal): ¹⁷ Why have you betrayed me like this, daughter, and let my enemy escape?

Michal (lying): He said to me, “Let me go. Don’t make me kill you.”

¹⁸ David fled to Samuel in Ramah, and he told him everything that had happened. Samuel took David to the town of Naioth, and they lived there.

¹⁹ Saul soon learned that David was at Naioth in Ramah, ²⁰ so he sent officers to arrest him and bring him back. But when they came, they found a group of prophets in a prophetic trance with Samuel standing and leading them, and the Spirit of the True God entered Saul’s officers so that they, too, were caught up and prophesied.

²¹ When Saul heard this news, he sent other officers who were also affected in this way. He sent a third set of officers, and again, the same thing happened when they encountered Samuel and the prophets.

²² So finally Saul went, himself, to Ramah. When he arrived at the large cistern at Secu, he asked where he might find Samuel and David and was told they were at Naoith in Ramah. ²³ As Saul traveled, the Spirit of God entered him, and he, too, fell into a constant prophetic trance.

Today’s Devotional

From today’s background scripture God might say:

Preachers preach a lot of sermons about Saul’s change of heart and his stormy relationship with David. They talk about the fact Saul never intended David to marry his daughter, Michal. He thought he ensured it would never happen by posting the unusual dowry of 100 Philistine foreskins. Saul would never have believed David would pay double the price with 200 foreskins.

We hear about My protection of David through all of Saul’s attempts to destroy David. But few ask an important question about the story of Michal’s betrayal of her father’s treachery and helping David escape his clutches. What are David and Michal doing with a life-sized idol in their home?

David let his love for Michal cloud his spiritual leadership in his home by allowing her to have the idol. Whether it belonged to her or one of her handmaids, the problem is the same. As the spiritual leader of his home, there was no place for an idol there. His children would learn about false gods from those who prayed to them, who believed in them. David created a tolerance in his household for the unholy which spread to his children and his grandchildren as seen later in the story of Israel’s kings.

I told My Moses and My children I am jealous and would not allow other gods around Me. They were to establish no idols of any kind around them. Yet here was the future king and queen with an idol close enough to use as a subterfuge for his escape. Now consider the domino affect that idol in David’s house began to have on the kingdom.

If David’s wife, Michal, would use it to disguise her husband from her father, she or others within the household no doubt kept it around as a good luck charm and told David’s children about how the idol helped him escape instead of My providence. The tolerance of the idol in the home allowed for Solomon’s tolerance of the many idols of his wives and concubines and the fact he even began to worship them at the shines on the hillsides in his later years. His son Rehoboam completely abandoned Me and worshiped pagan gods and Solomon’s officers after their rebellion set up idols in Bethel and Dan in direct violation of My commands.

You see, tolerance for the wrong things in your life can lead to disastrous results. David probably didn’t think much of the idol sitting around his house. After all, he had a heart for Me. He would not change his faith and was ready to die for Me. But those of lesser faith in his household, particularly his children and grandchildren, fell further and further from Me as the tolerance for a single idol grew to the point that shrines covered almost every hilltop across the land I had given My people.

Beware the little things you allow to creep into your life and the surroundings of your home. You never know the impact they will have on future generations.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
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