#399 - Kyle Thompson // A Harmful Spirit FROM the LORD

A king sits in the dark with a spear, locked on murder, while a young man plays music a few feet away trying to calm the room. That image is haunting on its own, but the Bible’s explanation is even more startling: “The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him.” We slow down long enough to actually hear what 1 Samuel is saying, without softening it or blaming it on spiritual “loopholes.”

We trace Saul’s story from Israel’s demand for a human king, to Saul’s early wins, to the disobedience that begins his collapse. Then we follow the secret anointing of David, the Spirit of the Lord rushing on him, and the repeated scenes where Saul rages with a spear in hand while David plays the lyre. Along the way, we talk leadership, jealousy, fear, and how sin doesn’t stay private for long.

The big question we put on the table is sovereignty: if the text says the harmful spirit is “from the Lord,” what does that mean about spiritual warfare, God’s rule, and the limits of demonic power? Our takeaway is simple and weighty: darkness does not operate outside God’s authority, and that changes how we read Scripture and how we stand firm when life feels spiritually intense. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a five-star rating and review so more men get equipped for the fight.

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Welcome And The Daily Blade Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Daily Blade. The word of God is described as the sword of the spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

Saul’s Dark Room And A Spear

SPEAKER_01 0:20

So I want you to imagine this. A king is sitting alone in a dark room with a spear in his hand. Across the room is his best soldier and his servant, a kid he practically adopted, and he's playing the harp, trying to calm the king down. But the king isn't calm at all. All the king can think about is murder. So, guys, welcome to a new week of the Daily Blade.

A Detail In Scripture You Missed

SPEAKER_01 0:42

So, part of what really set up this entire week of the Daily Blade is something that you've probably heard about before. So maybe you're watching a movie or a show or you've read a book that you've you've experienced all this stuff before, right? You're watching your favorite movie, you're rereading your favorite book, and you just notice something that's been there the whole time. It's been right there on the page or right there on the screen. You've noticed it, but it just escaped you for some reason. You got distracted by some other part of the narrative, uh, one of your other favorite parts or something like that. Well, that happened to me here recently because I watched this video online and it got me interested in a part of 1 Samuel 16. Now I had watched 1 Samuel, or sorry, I'd read 1 Samuel 16 rather. I had read it before, I had seen it depicted. You know, I watch it in some depictions on movies and TV shows and things like that, but there was something there, right there in plain English, in black and white, that I had missed. So let me go ahead and catch you up to speed before we get to chapter 16 of 1

Saul’s Rise And Disobedience

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Samuel. So Israel had directly rejected God's rules, and they demanded a human king for themselves. So God gave them a Benjamite named Saul to be their king. So Saul started off strong, he won some battles, he was, you know, tall and handsome, he looked apart, but over time he disobeyed God, and it really was the beginning of his end. So he was supposed to completely wipe out the Amalekites, but Saul instead kept their king and their livestock as plunder for himself. This disobedience really cost them everything. So God rejected Saul's dynasty, and then he sent the prophet Samuel to anoint a replacement, you know, a successor, king, if you will, in secret. So it was a shepherd boy from a town called Bethlehem, and the shepherd boy's name obviously is David. And when David was anointed with oil, the Bible says that the spirit of the Lord rushed on him. And Saul was completely in the dark on all this.

The Harmful Spirit From Yahweh

SPEAKER_01 2:22

And then comes the verse that should stop you dead in your tracks, like it did in me. So 1 Samuel 16, 14. Now the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him. So like I said, I I've read that verse several times before, and I just kind of passed right through it, but then I went back and I read it much more closely. So read that slowly again with me. Now the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him. So the text doesn't say that a harmful spirit slipped past God's defenses. You know, it doesn't say that a demonic spirit snuck back, you know, through the back door when God wasn't paying attention. It says explicitly in black and white that this harmful spirit was from the Lord. And the word Lord used here is the all-capitalized version, which is Yahweh. That's the proper covenant name of God. So it is Yahweh that is sending this harmful spirit to torment King Saul.

The Spear-Throwing Pattern Repeats

SPEAKER_01 3:21

And this just isn't some sort of one-time thing in the story of Saul. If you keep reading on, you know, David ends up serving in Saul's household. David kills Goliath, he becomes good buddies with Saul's son Jonathan. And Saul, who was, you know, watching this kid rise in popularity and grandeur, he starts to get eaten alive by jealousy. And then we see this in 1 Samuel 18, verse 10. The next day a harmful spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and he raved within his house while David was playing the lyre, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in hand, verse 11, and Saul hurled the spear, for he thought, I will pin David to the wall, but David evaded him twice. A harmful spirit from God. There it is again. Then if you keep reading, Saul agrees to let David marry one of his daughters, but only after he brings him the foreskins of 200 dead Philistines. So I can't imagine how that dowry didn't, you know, catch on long term, but you know, Saul did this because he assumed David would die in the process, right? But David didn't. David was successful. So then David becomes a mortal enemy of Saul. Saul's son Jonathan tried to intercede on both of their behalves at multiple points. He was trying to broker a long-term peace. And then we see this in 1 Samuel 19, starting in verse 9. Then a harmful spirit from the Lord came upon Saul as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand, and David was playing the lyre, and Saul sought to pin David to the wall with the spear, but he eluded Saul, so that he struck the spear into the wall, and David fled and escaped that night. There it is again. Same language, same spirit,

Divine Permission And God’s Sovereignty

SPEAKER_01 4:59

same source. And so this really got me thinking about the sovereignty of God, and that is what we're we're ultimately going to be focusing on all week on the Daily Blade. And I just gotta tell you, I really went down a major, major rabbit hole on this, you know, just connecting all the different dots, and you know, God ultimately revealed a bunch of connections for me. Because here's the thing this is what really hit me upside the head when I was doing all this research. This situation that I'm describing in 1 Samuel wasn't just demonic chaos outside of God's purview. What we see here in 1 Samuel is that God was giving divine permission to Satan and to demons to operate within God's purpose. So this establishes that demonic activity requires divine authorization. I mean, honest to goodness, it's just right there in black and white. It's been there the whole time, but I just never

Teaser For Tomorrow And Closing CTA

SPEAKER_01 5:53

seen it. So make sure you come back tomorrow because we're going to go back way further than Saul, back before David, before the kings, before the nation of Israel even existed. We're going to go back to the moment this entire war started. We're going to look at the fall of an anointed guardian cherub angel who decided he wanted more. Much, much more.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Thank you for listening to today's episode. Before you go, if you want to help equip other men for the fight, share this podcast around and leave us a five star rating and review. Stay sharp.