Rise And Fall #7: Which Side Do You Take? (1 Samuel 19:8-20:4)

1 Samuel 19:8-20:4 (8) Once more war broke out, and David went out and fought the Philistines. He struck them with such force that they fled before him. (9) But an evil spirit from the Lord came on Saul as he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand. While David was playing the lyre, (10) Saul tried to pin him to the wall with his spear, but David eluded him as Saul drove the spear into the wall. That night David made good his escape. (11) Saul sent men to David’s house to watch it and to kill him in the morning. But Michal, David’s wife, warned him, “If you don’t run for your life tonight, tomorrow you’ll be killed.” (12) So Michal let David down through a window, and he fled and escaped. (13) Then Michal took an idol and laid it on the bed, covering it with a garment and putting some goats’ hair at the head. (14) When Saul sent the men to capture David, Michal said, “He is ill.” (15) Then Saul sent the men back to see David and told them, “Bring him up to me in his bed so that I may kill him.” (16) But when the men entered, there was the idol in the bed, and at the head was some goats’ hair. (17) Saul said to Michal, “Why did you deceive me like this and send my enemy away so that he escaped?” Michal told him, “He said to me, ‘Let me get away. Why should I kill you?’” (18) When David had fled and made his escape, he went to Samuel at Ramah and told him all that Saul had done to him. Then he and Samuel went to Naioth and stayed there. (19) Word came to Saul: “David is in Naioth at Ramah”; (20) so he sent men to capture him. But when they saw a group of prophets prophesying, with Samuel standing there as their leader, the Spirit of God came on Saul’s men, and they also prophesied. (21) Saul was told about it, and he sent more men, and they prophesied too. Saul sent men a third time, and they also prophesied. (22) Finally, he himself left for Ramah and went to the great cistern at Seku. And he asked, “Where are Samuel and David?” “Over in Naioth at Ramah,” they said. (23) So Saul went to Naioth at Ramah. But the Spirit of God came even on him, and he walked along prophesying until he came to Naioth. (24) He stripped off his garments, and he too prophesied in Samuel’s presence. He lay naked all that day and all that night. This is why people say, “Is Saul also among the prophets?” (20:1) Then David fled from Naioth at Ramah and went to Jonathan and asked, “What have I done? What is my crime? How have I wronged your father, that he is trying to kill me?” (2) “Never!” Jonathan replied. “You are not going to die! Look, my father doesn’t do anything, great or small, without letting me know. Why would he hide this from me? It isn’t so!” (3) But David took an oath and said, “Your father knows very well that I have found favor in your eyes, and he has said to himself, ‘Jonathan must not know this or he will be grieved.’ Yet as surely as the Lord lives and as you live, there is only a step between me and death.” (4) Jonathan said to David, “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do for you.”