Day 115: King Saul is Spared (2026)

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a year podcast,

where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture.

The Bible in a year podcast is brought to you by Ascension.

Using the great adventure Bible timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation.

Discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today,

it is day 115, and we are reading from 1 Samuel chapter 24,

we're also praying Psalm 57, as always. The translation of the Bible that I am reading from

is the revised standard version, second Catholic edition. I'm using the great adventure Bible

from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a year reading plan, you can visit

AscensionPress.com slash Bible in a year, and you also are invited to subscribe in your podcast

app to receive daily episodes that you don't have to hunt for every single day, because they will

find you, they will hunt you down, and make sure that you listen to the Bible today like you're

doing on day 15, if you're reading from 1 Samuel chapter 24, and Psalm 57.

1 Samuel chapter 24, David spares Saul's life. When Saul returned from following the Philistines,

he was told, to behold, David is in the wilderness of Anguidi. Then Saul took 3,000 chosen men out of

all Israel and went to seek David and his men in front of the wild goats rocks. And he came to the

sheepfolds, by the way, where there was a cave and Saul went in to relieve himself. Now David and

his men were sitting in the innermost parts of the cave, and the men of David said to him,

here is the day of which the Lord said to you, behold, I will give your enemy into your hand,

and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you. Then David arose and stealthily cut off the

skirt of Saul's robe. In afterward, David's heart struck him because he had cut off Saul's skirt.

He said this to his men, the Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my Lord, the Lord's

anointed, to put forth my hand against him, seeing he is the Lord's anointed. So David persuaded

his men with these words and did not permit them to attack Saul, and Saul rose up and left the cave

and went upon his way. Afterward, David also arose and went out of the cave and called after Saul,

my Lord the King. And when Saul looked behind him, David bowed with his face to the earth

and did obeisance, and David said to Saul, why do you listen to the words of men who say,

behold, David seeks your hurt? Behold, this day your eyes have seen how the Lord gave you today

into my hand in the cave, and some bade me kill you, but I spared you. I said, I will not put forth

my hand against my Lord, for he is the Lord's anointed. See my Father, see the skirt of your robe in

my hand, for by the fact that I cut off the skirt of your robe and did not kill you, you may know and

see that there is no wrong or treason in my hands. I have not sinned against you, though you hunt my

life to take it. May the Lord judge between me and you, may the Lord avenge me upon you, but my hand

shall not be against you. As the proverb of the ancients says, out of the wicked comes forth wickedness,

but my hand shall not be against you. After whom has the King of Israel come out,

after whom do you pursue, after a dead dog, after a flee? May the Lord therefore be the judge and

give sentence between me and you and see to it and plead my cause and deliver me from your hand.

When David had finished speaking these words to Saul, Saul said,

is this your voice, my son, David? And Saul lifted up his voice and wept. He said to David,

you are more righteous than I. For you have repaid me good, whereas I have repaid you evil.

And you have declared this day how you have dealt well with me, and that you did not kill me when

the Lord put me into your hands. For if a man finds his enemy, will he let him go away safe?

So may the Lord reward you with good for what you have done to me this day, and now behold,

I know that you shall surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand.

Swear to me, therefore, by the Lord, that you will not cut off my descendants after me and that

you will not destroy my name out of my father's house. And David soared this to Saul.

Then Saul went home, but David and his men went up to the stronghold.

Psalm 57

Praise and assurance under persecution. To the choir master, according to do not destroy,

a victim of David when he fled from Saul in the cave.

Be merciful to me, O God. Be merciful to me for in you my soul takes refuge. In the shadow of your

wings I will take refuge till the storms of destruction pass by. I cry to God most high to God

who fulfills his purpose for me. He will send from heaven and save me. He will put to shame those

who trample upon me. God will send forth his mercy and his faithfulness. I lie in the midst of

lions that greedily devour the sons of men, their teeth are spears and arrows, their tongues sharp

swords. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth. They set a net

for my steps. My soul was bowed down. They dug a pit in my way, but they have fallen into it

themselves. My heart is steadfast, O God. My heart is steadfast. I will sing and make melody,

awake my soul, awake harp and lyre. I will awake the dawn. I will give you thanks, O Lord,

among the peoples. I will sing praises to you, among the nations. For your mercy is great to the

heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let your glory be

over all the earth. Father in heaven, we give you praise and we lift your name up and we thank

you. We thank you even the midst of trial. We thank you even in the midst of persecution and

in these, we follow these, follow these stories of King David. He's being hunted. He's being hunted

unfairly. He's being treated unfairly. We can see snapshots of our lives. We can see snapshots of

when we have been victims of injustice, when we have been those who have experienced the evil

of others, evil decisions of other people. And so we, like David, we give you praise even in

the midst of the battle. We give you praise even in the midst of the struggle. We give you praise

even in the midst of injustice, because you desire justice and you bid us to work for justice.

And you bid us to trust you, to praise you, and to belong to you. And so this day we reassert the

fact that Lord God even when things are difficult and when things are dark, we are yours. And when

things are struggle and things are a battle that we fight in your name and we fight according to

your plan and your will, may be glorified this day and every day of our lives. In Jesus' name,

we pray. Amen. The name of the Father, you know the Son and of the Holy Spirit. So here we go.

In gosh, first Samuel, chapter 24, we have once again, not once again, but we have for the first

time, one of the moments where David is going to spare the life of King Saul. He's going to do it

again. Just sorry, spoiler, I guess. But one of the things that this highlights is how rooted David

is in the reality that God has chosen King Saul. Yes, God is also chosen David to be King, but God

doesn't unchoose who he has chosen, right? And even the fact that King Saul has sinned and he will

not have a dynasty that lasts forever, that doesn't mean that he's unkinged, right? He still

is the king. He's still charged with the with the duty and the responsibility to continue to fight

for the people of Israel, especially against the Philistines, against the enemies of the people of Israel.

He still has that job. Now, at some point, God can unking the king. Absolutely. But David realizes

I am not God. And what God has anointed, I'm not going to, I'm not going to violate. I'm not going

to say that I'm not going to take it, I'm not going to take it upon myself to, I guess,

exterminate the person that God has anointed, even if God has made it very clear that he's going to

take the kingship from King Saul. David has the wisdom to know that yes, that is God's prerogative,

God gets to do that. But he has never ever told me that that's my prerogative that I get to do that.

And there's something really powerful about this because what it reveals is it reveals that David

himself recognizes the power of the Lord and his anointed, his anointing and the power of the

Lord's choosing him in the power of the Lord's faithfulness that God gets to be the one who

decides who is king and who's not. God gets to be the Lord over the living and the dead. God

gets to be the God of life and death. He gets to be sovereign, right? God gets to be sovereign.

And David, even though he's going to be the next king, he recognizes his limits. And this is maybe

the key for a lot of us, maybe not for all of us, but I know for myself, I might be tempted at times

or even might be told by others, hey, you should overextend your reach. I might want to overextend

my reach and wait into areas that God hasn't given me permission to wait into, that there are

battles around this world. There are battles in life that God hasn't necessarily commissioned me

to step into. If he does, great, I will try to do my best to say yes to this. And there are battles

in our lives, in your life that God hasn't necessarily called you into. And if he does, great,

you're hopefully you'll respond. Like hopefully all of us will respond whenever the

Lord calls us to move forward. But there are also limits that we all have. And these limitations,

they can be self-imposed in limitations, right? They can be limitations imposed by others

around us. They also can be the limitation of, I don't know that God has called me to this.

I don't know God that God has called me to this particular fight, this particular battle,

this particular struggle. And to be aware of one's own limitations is not the same thing as

limiting oneself. It's not the same thing as shrinking back from the challenge or shrinking back

from the battle. Remember, David is not a man who's going to shrink back from the challenge of

Goliath, just like Jonathan was an a man who did shrink back from the challenge of the Philistines.

But here's what we have to do. What I, sorry, I don't know if you do, I know that I do. What I

have to do is someone says, Father, why don't you do X, Y, or Z? Or maybe I look at it and say,

man, I want to say something like this, that or the other thing. What I get to do and I have to do

is what David did yesterday. I have to consult the Lord. God, this is, remember with the

residents of Kila, the key lights, sorry, Kila, yeah, Kilaides, how they said, the residents of

the city of Kila, they were being attacked by the Philistines. And before David just went up and

fought them, fought that battle, he went before the Lord and said, God, is this a battle you want

me to fight? This is so important for every single one of us, especially when we can be keyboard

jockeys, you know, when we can just weigh in on every, every, everything, that's even important

that maybe isn't our fight, maybe isn't our battle. Now, at the same time, I can look at someone

else and say, we should be fighting here. I should look at someone else and say, maybe you should

step down, but you know, that's not my job either, that my job is to listen to the Lord's voice

and to ask him, God, do you want me to say something about this? Do you want me to do something

about this? And not just to say, okay, I'm going to go fight because someone tells me I need to go

fight unless that person is my bishop, in which case I will do that. I hope this makes sense.

One of the things we realize that David reveals to us is he is aware of his limitations,

and he also is aware that he will only fight when the Lord tells him, hey, now it's time to go fight.

I think that might be something we can take away with and walk away with as well, that I become more

more aware of my limitations, and I'm only going to fight when God says, okay, this is the fight

that you need to throw your hat into, no matter what it costs, you need to get into this battle,

into this fight, but until the Lord does that, maybe it's why is it, why is it, why is it,

why is this thing to do is to continue to pray, continue to listen to his voice, continue to

listen to wise people, and always be ready to do his will. Because that's, there's nothing,

there's nothing greater, there's nothing other than that. We all want to be ready to do God's will

at every moment. Anyways, I am praying for you because I know that the Lord will call you into

certain fights, that maybe you don't want to go into, and please pray for me because the Lord might

call me into certain fights that I am not equipped for. And so we need to keep praying for each other

because there are battles are not with flesh and blood, right? Our battles are with principalities

and powers. And so the Lord is going to call us to some kind of battle. Typically, that battle for

every one of us is going to be against principalities and powers, not against flesh and blood,

as much as it always is going to be against the kingdom of darkness, so that the kingdom of Jesus

Christ can always reign. That's what we need to pray for each other. That's what I need you,

please, to pray for me. That's why I am praying for you. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait

to see you tomorrow. God bless.