1 Samuel 25

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All right. First panel 25. And you could say the road to the kingdom for David. He was anointed in chapter 16. And do you remember David is spending oh 12 to 13 years in the school of Saul's pursuit, right? He's running through the wilderness with a band of men. And really, he's just learning to trust God. And you remember we've said more and more that in it God's building the character that he wants David to have. He's helping them learn to trust. And we've said many times that God is more interested in working in us than is working through us. And that's important to realize because it's not just true for David, it's true for each one of us. That's why life is not always easy, because God is working character in us. Now, the events that we talk about today fall around year eight or nine of that 12-year education. So that's where we're at. Now, as we jump into uh chapter 25, we read very simply verse 1, then Samuel died, and the Israelites gathered together lamented for him, buried him at his home in Ramna, and David arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran. So Samuel uh passes off the scene. Now he's been pretty quiet uh these years. He's doing what's around him, but here, like all of humanity, Samuel dies. The book started with his birth, and even really before his birth, and here now he's off the scene. Uh no one knows wherever. Um, but he has finished well, and all Israel mourned him and buried him. Uh Samuel's race is finished, but David's is still going on. Let's look at verse 2. Rather colorful scene here today. Verse 2. Now there was a man in Moan, Maon, whose name, whose business was Carmel, in Carmel, and the man was very rich. He had 3,000 sheep, a thousand goats, and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. Uh, the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife, Habidil. And she was a woman of good understanding and beautiful appearance. But the man was harsh and evil in his doings. He was of the house of Halo. So here we meet one of the characters for today's uh uh account. It's Nabo. And he's very rich. We see that right off. He's very rich. You can picture his costume there. He's perhaps got rings and robes and this aura of wealth, so to speak. But um, it's not just that he's rich, he's very rich. We read out. Now we we see his stock counts of sheep and goats and and all those things, and it's pretty significant. Uh, his name is Nabal, and it's hard to tell from that name whether that is his given name or his reputation, because the name Nabal means fool. We see that a little later on, and perhaps it's just his character, because it'd be a real drag to name the kid Nabel, a fool, right? Not nice. Um, but we see that his character really represents that. Even his wife says that later on. He's arrogant, we find out, he's rash, he's self-absorbed. Later he gets drunk, and as you can imagine, things don't go well with all those things put together. Now, the best thing that Nabel has going for him, as we introduce him here, is his smart, beautiful wife, Abigail. That's what she's listed as smart and beautiful. And we'll consider her character later, but she is most definitely a ray of sunshine in this story. Now, let's see this play as it expands here in verse 4. When David heard in the wilderness that Nabel was shearing his sheep, and David sent ten young men, and David said to the young men, go up to Kongmel, go to Nabel, and greet him in my name. And thus you shall say to him who lives in prosperity, peace, shalom, peace be to you, peace be to your house, and peace to all of you have. Now I have heard that you are sheer, uh, you have shearers, your shepherds were with us, and we did not hurt them, nor was there anything missing from them while they were uh while listen missing from them all the while they were in Carnell. Ask your young man, they will tell you, therefore, let my young man find favor in the vibes. For we come on a feast day. Please give whatever comes to your hand, to your servants, and to your son David. So when David's young man came, they spoke to Nabal according to these words in the name of David and went there. And Nabal answered David's servants and said, Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants nowadays to break away each one from his master. Shall I then take bread and my water, my meat that I have killed for my shears, and give them, give it to men who I do not know where they are from. So David's young men turned back on their heels and went back. And they came and told him all these words. So here, um David there in the wilderness, he's he's you could say contracting some of his work out. He's taking care of uh sheep in the area, he's protecting, adding his protections to the local philosoph, mainly a man named Naba. And we read a little later in verse 15 that Nabal's servants say this about the process there. But the men were very good to us, and we were not hurt, nor did we miss anything as long as we accompanied them and they were in the fields. Uh, they were a wall to us, both by night and day. All the time we were there keeping the sheep. So his men say it, Nagel's men say it, Damon and his men protected us. They were safety and security to us. And Damon comes with a very reasonable thing and says, Well, since we gave you protection, can you provide for us? You're shearing a sheep, you're throwing a party. How about you give us some supplies so we don't starve? You help you, you help us. Now, here we see right away Nabel's harsh and egotistical um ways, right? Uh, he is responding as a fool. Um, and and and that's what he does. Now, his quality we see there in verse 10 and 11, how he responds. He says, Well, why should I give you supplies? A lot of people betray their masters. Why should I waste what I have on you? I don't even know what you're up to. So Nabal's response is pretty crazy, it's pretty arrogant. And David is furious. Let's look at verse 13 and see how angry he was. Then David said to his men, every man verred on his sword, and every man verged on the sword, and David also girded on his sword. And about 400 men went with David, and 200 stayed with the supplies. So David is so upset about this response from David, and it's easy to miss. But here he says, All right, everybody, all you 400 men, put on your swords, I'll put on my swords. We're gonna go destroy some people. We're gonna kill them and his men. Uh verse 21, we we we see what was really going on in David's head, the fullness of it, verse 21. David had said, Surely in vain I have protected all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all his belongings, all of his belongings, and he has repaid me evil for good. May God do so in war also to the enemies of David, if I leave one male who of all who belong to him by mourning light. So you gotta see this. David's so angry that he says, I am gonna kill every single one of Naval's men. Every single one. David is considering murder, massacre. That's what he has in mind. This is some serious rage in David's heart. Now, this is an interesting story for sure, but put it on a personal level. This is real murder, real anger going on here. And obviously, not godly character in David's heart at this moment. Now, why is all this happening? Why do we even have any information on this occurrence? Well, I think it reminds us of a truth in James chapter 1, verse 2, one we might not like so much. James says, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. So James tells us, why are there people like Naval in our lives? It's to produce patience. God wants to change our character. Now, the situation brings out some of the worst in David, murder, but but God is wanting to do this work in David's character. So without intervention, though, and realize this, without intervention, David's headed for a big-time mistake, a serious mistake. Verse 14, enter Abigail, and we're all grateful for Abigail. Now, one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, saying, Look, David sent messengers from the wilderness to green our master, and he reviled them. So a man from Nabal's employees comes back to Abigail, Nabal's wife, and says, Look, this did not blow well. David sent messages, messengers to us, and Nabal just turned them away. And and and he tells Abigail because he knows her character. Uh now, what we read about Abigail here is that she is um smart, she has great understanding, but she's also beautiful. Her name is pretty sweet. It means father's joy, and that's a good name, isn't it? Alga Gil, Father's Joy. And I bet given her reputation, she was her father's joy, and we see her character was golden. She was the wife you would want to have, and the wife that she didn't deserve if you were somebody like Nabo, right? And people probably wonder why. Why does he have such a great wife? He certainly doesn't deserve it. Now, maybe it was a range thing, but um what a blessing, right? She's gonna, in the beginning here, save his life. Um now, now here, here's Abigail. She's wise, she's beautiful. She hears this from one of the workers. Nabel's at it again. The fool is mouth and mouth to David. He reviled him. And David was good to us, and he took care of us, and and he's coming to kill Nabel. And and Abigail's not really surprised there. Notice in verse 17, uh, she says, consider what you will do to David, and harm turned against our mousebusy. Uh, for such he is such a scoundrel that one can't speak to him. This is his character. Nobody can say anything to this guy. And uh Abigail's not surprised. Well, here she gets the word right away. Follow along to verse 18. Then Abigail made haste and took 200 loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep already dressed, five says of roasted green, one hundred clusters of raisins, two hundred cakes of fakes, and loaded them on donkeys. So we see here that a party is already kind of planned, right? Because I mean, seriously, who has 200 loaves of bread waiting in the pantry, you know, and all of this stuff. She has it around and she puts it on some donkeys and she heads out as quick as she can to undo what her husband has done. Um, verse 20. And she said to her servants, Go on before me and see I am coming after you. But she did not tell her husband Abel. So it was as she rode on the donkey that she went down under cover of the hill, and there were David and his men coming down toward her, and she met them. In verse 21 and 22, David proceeds on a little bit of a rant here, uh, all he's done and all he gets to thanks. And in verse 23, we see Abigail, and come back for this. We see Abigail becomes an intercessor for her husband, someone who stands in the gap and helps uh her husband. She's a blessed counselor, right? Here in verse 23, we read this. Now, when Abigail saw David, she dismounted quickly from the donkey, fell on her face before David, and bowed down to the ground. She fell at his feet and said, On me, my lord, and on me let this iniquity be. And please let your maidservant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your maidservant. Please let not my lord regard this scoundrel, worthless person, Nabal. For as his name is, so he is. Now then, let your enemies be as those who seek harm uh for my Lord be as Nabel. And now this present which your maidservant has brought to my Lord, let it give unto the young men who follow my Lord. Please forgive the trespass of your maidservant, for the Lord will certainly make uh for my Lord an enduring house, uh, because the Lord fights the battles of the Lord, and evil is not found throughout your games. Yet a man has risen to pursue you and seek your life. But the life of my Lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living with the Lord your God, and the lives of your enemies shall be sh he shall sling out as from the pocket of a slave. And it shall come to pass when the Lord has done for my Lord, according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you, and has appointed you ruler over Israel, that this will be no grief to you, nor offense of heart to my Lord, uh, either that you have shed blood without cause, or that the Lord has avenged himself. But when the Lord has dealt well of my Lord, then remember your maidservant. So long talk here, right? Abigail steps in as a good counselor. She really to us appears as a representative of the Holy Spirit. See the tie here. She really does the work of the Holy Spirit for David, she convicts him. In verse 25, she says, please don't regard this scoundrel nable. Don't worry about it. Verse 26, she says, God's held you back. You gotta realize it, David. God held you back from bloodshed, from murder. And in verse 26, also, you don't want to be somebody who avenges yourself in the situation. And this is the conviction of the Holy Spirit. This is all the stuff that David has known throughout the story. I can't take matters into my own hands. I have to trust God. I can't, I can't just kill Saul. I have to leave it up to God. And just like the Holy Spirit, Abigail nudges David's heart. Just like the Holy Spirit nudges our part, like we talked about last week, convicts us of sin. Abigail is the kind of counsel that we all need in our life. Godly counsel. Pure Holy Spirit convicts them. Um verse 28. Notice, like the Holy Spirit, Abigail also reminds David of a promise. You're gonna be pain. You are absolutely going to experience all of God's good plan for you. And that's what the Holy Spirit does for us. The Holy Spirit reminds us of all the promises that God has for us. Heaven is a real place. Don't get bogged down in this life. One day we're gonna be there. It's what we do for eternity that matters. And the Holy Spirit reminds us of those promises and the hope that we have, um, especially when we're not seeing you. So the Holy Spirit does that. Verse 29, Abigail reminds him through a little bit of illustration here. He says, Remember the sling? She brings up the sling. Now, who can think of a sling and not think of David's battle with the light? I mean, it was in all the newspapers, right? And and David could look back at that and say, Yeah, I remember that time. Just did this crazy boldness of faith. I trusted God, put the rock in my little sling, and I went out there in the power of God just and Goliath, this giant was destroyed. And and it was just this reminder. Hey, remember the life of faith. You're forgetting it right now, David. Remember the life of faith, and and so she resembles the Holy Spirit. Good counselor in this situation, but she also resembles Jesus, I think. In verse 23, she gets to David, and there it says she dismounted. Uh, she fell on her face. Now, this is a big deal, right? She's nobility in a sense, she's a nobleman's wife. He's got money and all these things. She doesn't need to be getting off that donkey and falling on her face on the ground. And yet Abigail does. It's humility, some serious humility. Verse 24. Zero in on verse uh 24. She fell at his feet and said, On me, my lord, and on me, let this iniquity be. She takes responsibility for the foolish husband. She says, Let it be my fault, David. And she takes responsibility. That's insane. Right? Because Abigail had nothing to do with it. But yet she says, This is my problem. Let the sin be on me. And you look through the Bible and people like Daniel, people like Nehemiah and Ezra, they prayed prayers like this. They said, God, it's me. It's my family. It's my father's. We're the ones that sinned, even though they weren't. And they took responsibility for, in a sense, other people's doings. But that's so Jesus, isn't it? That Jesus took responsibility for our sins. Like he became sin, 2 Corinthians 5, 21. He became sin for us. And she says here, let the iniquity be with you. And she becomes, last thing, she becomes an intercessor. Not something that we really consider much, but Job, back in the book of Job, Job dreamed of somebody who could be an intercessor. He says, I wish that there was somebody that could put one hand on me and one hand on God and bring us together. And that's exactly what an intercessor does. Puts one hand on a person and another hand on their enemy and brings them together. And so Abigail is fully an intercessor for her husband. And that's what God has done for us. Now, who we look like in this story, we look like maiden. Right? I mean, all around. We're all made novel in this story, and Jesus becomes our intercessor. We were lost, we were foolish. We had messed everything up, and yet Jesus takes our sin upon himself, represents us, and brings us to the Father. Um, such a perfect picture of what God does for us. And here, in wisdom and in humility, Abigail becomes a good picture of both of these things, the Holy Spirit and Jesus. Now, most stories don't have a very good resolution. Uh, this one actually does. So we better read it, I suppose, the resolution um to the story in verse 32. And David said to Abigail, Blessed is the Lord God of Israel who sent you this day to meet me. And blessed is your advice, and blessed you, because you have kept me this day from coming to bloodshed, murder, and from avenging myself with my own hand. For indeed, as the Lord God of Israel lives, you uh uh who has kept me back from hurting you, unless you had hurried to come to meet me, surely by morning no males would have been left to Nabo. So David received from her hand what she had brought him and said to her, Go up in peace to your house. See, I have heeded your voice and respected your person. Now, check this out in verse 36. Now Abigail went to Nabal, and there he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. And Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk. Therefore she told him nothing, little and much, until morning light. So it was in the morning, when the wine had gone from Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him, and became like a stone. Then it happened after about ten days that the Lord struck Nabal and he died. Whoa. Right? Now this isn't how it always goes down. Now, God does, uh you know, he does stick up for us, but this isn't how it always goes down. But here, Nabal, after a night of drunken feasting, his wife wakes him up in the morning and says, Hey hon, just want to let you know David was gonna kill you and all of your men. And his heart becomes like a stone, is what we read here. A heart attack, stroke? I don't know. He has something going on, and ten days later, he's dead, right? Now, notice when David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, Blessed be the Lord, who has pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal and has kept his servant from evil, for the Lord has returned the wickedness of Nabal on his own head. And David sent and proposed to Abigail to take her as his wife. When the servants of David had come to Abigail at Carmel, they spoke to her, saying, David sent us to you to ask you to become his wife. Then she arose, bowed her face to the earth, and said, Here is your maidservant, a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my Lord. So, happily interact question mark? I don't know. Resolved, yes. And the lesson here that David learns is let God fight your vows. Trust him with the things of your life. And that's the character, of course, that God's working in his life. So, God, I know the bottom line is that we learn to trust you. Uh, because you never let us down. God, we can take matters into our own hands, and we're very tempted. We can stick up for our own rights, and we stay, give room for vengeance of the Lord. But it all comes down to trust. Trust that you're able to take care of us and get us where you want us to be. God, that is extremely difficult in spite of the fact that you've never let us down. God, it's extremely difficult to trust you with even the little things on our life. God help us this week. Whatever the circumstance that comes over, it's help us to trust you just a little bit more.