The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 114: David Saves Keilah (2023)

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

Fr. Mike explores the actions of David before saving the city of Keilah, and how he sets an example for us while discerning God's will. He also points out how God is working constantly in our lives, even if we don't see half of what he's doing. Today's readings are 1 Samuel 23 and Psalm 54. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

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 114. We're just reading one chapter from 1 Samuel. We're reading 1 Samuel chapter 23. We're also praying Psalm 54. As always, the Bible translation

that I am using 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 if you have not yet subscribed to this podcast, you can just click subscribe and it'll be done and you'll be subscribed and life will be good. As I said, today is day 114. We're reading 1 Samuel chapter 23. We're praying Psalm 54. 1 Samuel chapter 23. David saves the city of Keilah. Now they told David, behold, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah and are robbing the threshing floors. Therefore David inquired of the Lord, Shall I go and attack these Philistines?

And the Lord said to David, Go and attack the Philistines and save Keilah. But David's men said to him, Behold, we are afraid here in Judah. How much more if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines? Then David inquired of the Lord again, and the Lord answered him, Arise, go down to Keilah, for I will give the Philistines. Then David inquired of the Lord again, and the Lord answered him, Arise, go down to Keilah, for I will give the Philistines into your hand. And David and his men went to Keilah and fought with the Philistines and brought away their cattle and made a great slaughter among them. So David delivered the inhabitants of Keilah. When Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, fled to David to Keilah, he came down with an ephod in his hand.

Now it was told Saul that David had come to Keilah, and Saul said, God has given him into my hand, for he has shut himself in by entering a town that has gates and bars. And Saul summoned all the people to war to go down to Keilah to besiege David and his men. David knew that Saul was plotting evil against him, and he said to Abiathar the priest, Bring the ephod here. Then said David, O Lord, the God of Israel, your servant has surely heard that Saul seeks to come to Keilah to destroy the city on my account. Will the men of Keilah surrender me into his hand? Will Saul come down as your servant has heard? O Lord, the God of Israel, I beg you, tell your servant. And the Lord said, He will come down. Then said David, Will the men of Keilah surrender me and

my men into the hand of Saul? And the Lord said, They will surrender you. Then David and his men, who were about six hundred, arose and departed from Keilah, and they went wherever they could go. When Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah, he gave up the expedition, and David remained in the stronghold in the wilderness, in the hill country of the wilderness of Ziph. And Saul sought him every day, but God did not give him into his hand. David eludes Saul in the wilderness. And David was afraid, because Saul had come out to seek his life. David was in the wilderness of Ziph at Horesh. And Jonathan, Saul's son, rose and went to David at Horesh,

and strengthened his hand in God. And he said to him, Fear not, for the hand of Saul my father shall not find you. You shall be king over Israel, and I shall be next to you. Saul my father also knows this. And the two of them made a covenant before the Lord. David remained at Horesh, and Jonathan went home. Then the Ziphites went up to Saul at Gibeah, saying, Does not David hide among us in the strongholds at Horesh, on the hill of Hakila, which is south of Jeshimon? Now come down, O king, according to all your heart's desire to come down, and our part shall be to surrender him into the king's hand. And Saul said, May you be blessed by the Lord, for you have compassion

on me. Go, make yet more sure. Know and see the place where his haunt is, and who has seen him there, for it is told me that he is very cunning. See therefore, and take note of all the lurking places where he hides, and come back to me with sure information. Then I will go with you, and if he is in the land, I will search him out among all the thousands of Judah. And they arose and went to Ziph ahead of Saul. Now David and his men were in the wilderness of Ma'on, in the Ereba, to the south of Jeshamon. And Saul and his men went to seek him. And David was told, therefore he went down to the rock which is in the wilderness of Ma'on. And when Saul heard that, he pursued after David in the wilderness of Ma'on. Saul went on one side of the mountain, and David and his men on the other side of the mountain.

And David was making haste to get away from Saul, as Saul and his men were closing in upon David and his men to capture them, when a messenger came to Saul, saying, Make haste and come, for the Philistines have made a raid upon the land. Psalm 54 Prayer for Vindication To the choirmaster with stringed instruments, a mascal of David, when the Zephites went and told Saul, David is in hiding among us.

Save me, O God, by your name, and vindicate me by your might. Hear my prayer, O God, give ear to the words of my mouth. For insolent men have risen against me, ruthless men seek my life, they do not set God before them. Behold, God is my helper, the Lord is the upholder of my life. He will repay my enemies with evil, in your faithfulness put an end to them. With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you. I will give thanks to your name, O Lord, for it is good. For you have delivered me from every trouble, and my eye has looked in triumph

on my enemies. Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory. We thank you. We thank you for the fact that you are just, and you are good good and you continually speak to us, Lord God. And sometimes in our prayer, you're quiet. Sometimes in our prayer, when we're asking for a specific answer, you are silent and you don't speak in the way that we would prefer. But Lord God, you continue to speak.

You continue to speak to us through your word. You continue to speak to us every single day that we press play and just allow your word to reach our ears and allow your word to touch and transform our hearts. And so this day, just like David, we ask for your guidance. We ask for your will to be made known, not only in sacred scripture, Lord God, and not only through the church, but also in our prayer. We ask that you please, and also in the in our prayer. We ask that you please, and also in the people around us, we ask that you just, in everything your will is done,

in everything, you are glorified. And we give you praise and glory right now. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. So here we are, just one chapter, obviously, in 1 Samuel chapter 23. And I just think there's something so powerful about this. So the beginning of the story, right beginning of this chapter, I mean, we have David saving the city of Keilah. And so they told David, Philistines are attacking Keilah. And it's really interesting because David has one of three potential options. One is David could say, okay, fine. I'm not the king. Saul's the king.

Let Saul defend the people of Keilah against the Philistines. He could have said, not my business. Secondly, he could have said, okay, let's do it. Let's, it is my business. I will fight. Or he could do what he did do. And he said, I will inquire of the Lord about this. And it's really remarkable because we have this happen again and again, where he says, where specifically we'll say that here's

this group of people, or here is the leader of the people who did not consult the Lord. It just, you know, this new information came to this person and they didn't ask the Lord what he, what his will was. And yet here's David could have said, not my business could have said, it is my business. Let's go. But what he did say was, I actually need to ask of the Lord first. Then what happens is, and this is, I think, pretty remarkable. There are people that David trusts who say, don't, let's not do this. So then it says, David appealed to the Lord again, and he went back to God.

So what this shows is that not only does David inquire of the Lord, not only does David ask God for guidance, he's also actually taking into account the wisdom of the people around him. And this is one of the things that we do when we discern is that, yes, we absolutely, we go to the scripture. Absolutely. We listen to what has the church taught on this in the past. We look in and say, okay, God, have you ever said anything about this? Or are you speaking now to tell me no or to tell me yes? But we also weigh in, weigh up, I guess we take into account the wise voices around us. And so that's what David does. He takes into account and then goes back to the Lord and the Lord's voice continues to say, yep,

even though your people who are your counselors around you say no, I continue to say yes. And so there's something really powerful about this where it just gives us a great example, not only for ourselves, but also gives us insight into the heart of David, that David is going to be the kind of person who does appeal to the Lord, who doesn't just go off on his own. Well, that might come later on. But right now, what David is showing is that he is a man after God's own heart, and he appeals to the Lord for direction more than anything. The other thing I just want to highlight is the Ziphites, right, they betray David because they tell Saul that he's there.

But at the last section of chapter 23, there's this little story. And basically, the story describes how on one side of the hill is Saul and his army. And the other side of the hill is David and his band of ruffians, essentially his band of his 600 men. And they're simply separated by a ridge. They're simply separated one on the other side. If, if Saul knew the King David, future King David was on the other side of this ridge, what he could have done is he could have driven over the ridge. And yet what happened is, you know, God sends word through the messengers of King Saul that the Philistines were attacking. And so he had to go back and do what kings have to do. And I think about this particularly as it relates to all of the ways that God is acting when we don't realize it. All the ways that God is still

active when we have no idea. Because you would imagine David has no idea on the other side of this ridge is King Saul. And David has no idea that this was a close call, that he has no idea this could have been the end of his life until after. And then he realizes, oh, this place is the rock of escape. And how many times difficult things happen to us and horrible things happen to the people we love. And yet, and we count those up, right? Because those, those matter. The fact that we're often hurt. People who we love are often hurt, but we don't even know how to begin counting the number of escapes the Lord has given to us. The number of times the Lord has delivered us, the number of times we didn't even realize how close we were to disaster.

And God stepped in in a way that we just might see as a coincidence. We might just see as we might not even notice it. We might not even see it until heaven where we can look back over our lives and we'll be able to see not only all of the times when there was difficult moments where God was present, but he allowed us to enter the difficult moments, but also all of those moments where it could have been catastrophe, it could have been disaster,

it could have been the end of us, but God in his mysterious will, in his mysterious way, he had stepped in. And so one of the things, the hand of God is present to all of us, even when we don't realize it. The hand of God is present to us right now in the sense that this is the shortest, I think, day we've had so far.

Day 114. Maybe the Lord wants to just give you a little break and say, you know what? Only half as long today. We'll do some longer ones later on. But today is day 114, and I just want to let you know how proud I am of you and so grateful I am for you to continue journeying with all of us in this Bible in a year. Please keep praying for each other.

I am praying for you. Please, please, please pray for me. My name is Father Mike, and I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.