Turn in your Bibles to 1 Samuel
chapter 25. 1 Samuel chapter 25. The title of our message today
is, The Fool and the Strong Man Both Need a Wise Woman. Now,
I know that sounds just weird. We'll see what we can do. Not
all men are strong. that goes without saying, that
all men are fools, that goes without saying, and neither are
all women wise. But where folly and strength
find themselves competing for the same space, what we need
is wisdom from God to arbitrate such conflict so that it does
not result in ruin. When you have a battle between
power and strength and riches and wealth and people, as it
were, thinking that they are something and they don't know
how to unlock horns, that's what we've got going on here, you
need wise counsel to unravel and untie that knot. Many of
us would admit there were occasions in our life where we wanted a
wise person to intervene to stop a crazy event from happening
that actually happened and almost ruined our lives. Well, before
us in our text today, we have what, if you are sensitive to
the narrative, is what I call a clear parenthetical chapter. In other words, chapter 25 can
be taken out of your Bibles And you can look at the last verse
of chapter 24 and then start with the first verse of chapter
26 and you won't miss a beat. So when God gives us parenthetical
statements or parenthetical chapters, those parentheticals are designed
on the Arthur's part for us to pause and take notice of something
very important before we move on in the excursion of the narrative. He wants us to learn some things
about nature, about life, about the parties that we have been
engaging with over several weeks. Largely David and David's ascension
to the throne and the context in which David has been struggling
now for over a year and a half. Chapter 27 will tell us that
David will remain in the wilderness for another two and a half years.
And if you take that into consideration, when you are a fugitive on the
run in the wilderness for a sum of almost four years, it can
get to your head. It can mess with your mind. And
what God wants us to know is that while David is serving for
us as a wonderful model of whom? David is not Christ. And so typology teaches us that
patterns and principles laid out in the Old Testament will
give us frameworks of redemptive realities. And we will see marvelous
shadows and pictures of our Savior in His person and work. Is that
true? And yet you have to be careful to know that the pattern
is not the reality. And the reason for which we have
to remember that is God will often let the pattern stumble. Make mistakes. show themselves
to be flawed, so that the pattern can say with John the Baptist,
I am not the Christ. I confess, I deny not, and I
confess that I am not the Christ. God might be using me mightily,
but don't get it twisted. I'm not Jesus. And that's what
David will say at the end of his excursion. I'm not the Lord
Jesus. And so when you are enjoying
the power of God working through an individual, as our elders
said it this morning, in Christ being revealed through their
life, understand it just for that. It's Christ being revealed. That person still has their own
issues. You gotta know how to divide
between the grace of God working in a person and the humanity
of that person. And the author wants us to understand
that David here is going to have a slight alteration of his understanding
for a moment. This will be the first of three,
rather four major stumblings on David's part. Now that's not
bad when you live to be almost 80 years old and God has used
you mightily. And all you and I do is mess
up four times. Come on now, I just need some
honest folks in the house. Because see, we'll jump on David and
we'll talk bad about him because of his mistakes. But it's only
four. And I bet y'all don't even know
the other three. So I'm just getting at this. God can use
us mightily. But He will always keep us in
a position where we will know and everybody else will know.
We never did it like Jesus. There's none that do it like
Christ. There's none that do it like our Savior. He was holy. He was harmless. He was separate
from sinners. He was undefiled. He knew no
sin. He did no sin. In Him was no
sin at all. He was the spotless Lamb of God
from the time He was born till the time He went back to glory
again. He came and went. and never ever once faulted. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that
our hope? That's our foundation for glory.
Not David, Jesus. But we're gonna learn a few things
today by way of practical application as well as redemptive realities.
Again, the author wants us to pause so that we might take up
a warning, a very serious warning in our text that he lays out
in front of us. And that is the danger of persistent
conflict a person's life leading to a fatally flawed perception
of themselves. The danger of a persistent pattern
of conflict in one's life that leads to a flawed self-perception. That's what he wants us to get
at. Remember last week I talked to you about this idea of conflict
and war in our language and in our dialogue, how that we can
become used to fighting with people so much that the way we
frame our words are always more defensive and attacking than
couched in a conciliatory form by which we want to reason through
an issue. When you and I are in a war state too long, we are
in a constant state of defensiveness. And when you are defensive, you
can never ever really objectively analyze what people are saying
to you because you're in a defensive mode. When you are in a defensive
mode too long, you become addicted to being defensive in your words,
addicted to being ready to fight back and pounce back and to parry
and to be suspicious. and, as it were, win the battle
with that individual. They're not even fighting with
you. They just said, hello. What you mean by that? And so what I want you to get
is, if you're not sensitive to your context and how your context
can permeate your thinking, and your thinking can jade who you
really are and what you're supposed to be, you can end up in a situation
like David is right now, making a mountain out of a molehill.
And then find yourself engaged in the very folly that you are
asserting is taking place in the other person's life. And
so what David will teach us today is how God is merciful to keep
us from being fools when sometimes we act like one. Point number one in our out.
No, let me let me do one more observation by our text in verse
1 of chapter 25 The author lets us know very clearly that a very
special person has died His name is Samuel. Do you see verse 1
and Samuel died and all the Israelites were gathered together and lamented
him and buried him in in his house at Ramah and David arose
and went down to the wilderness of Pereth. Now when the author
opens up like this, he wants you now to take note of a major
shift in the history of Israel. He wants you to note the shift
and then think about the implications of the shift. Then he wants you
to think through, he wants you to think through why the most
important person in the narrative didn't go that way. See, Samuel
was the last of the Old Testament judges. Remember, we learned
that we had the patriarchal period, then we had what we call the
theocratic period, now we are in the monarchical period. You
and I live in the church age. And the theocratic kingdom has
now officially ended with the death of Samuel. There will never
be a judge like Samuel again. Samuel held three offices. He
was judge, he was priest, and he was what? He was prophet. The monarchy is being established
now, and the two were overlapping so that the kings would go to
Samuel for advice. But Samuel dies and he ends the
theocratic period of the judges. The monarchial system now is
set. And the death of Samuel was huge
for David, but David could not go down to the funeral. Why? Because there was a radical king
that wanted to kill him. Much like when John the Baptist
ended the Old Testament prophetic era, because he was the last
of the Old Testament prophets, Jesus couldn't go to his funeral
either. because the paradigm is there.
Jesus is a fugitive of the hostile rulers who actually killed his
cousin John, and they would have killed him too, had he shown
up where John was. David has to go the other direction.
So in David going the other direction, David now runs across what appears
to him to be a real blessed scenario. The first five verses tells us
that in Carmel, not Mount Carmel, but another city in Judah, there
was a man named Nabal. Notice what it says in verse
2, and there was a man in Maon of Carmel whose possessions were
in Carmel. And the man was very great. Ladies and gentlemen,
that means he was very, very rich. In our vernacular, we would
call him filthy rich. You know, us poor folks just
love to jab at folks. Filthy rich. Like there's something
wrong with being rich. He filthy rich. And he had 3,000
sheep and 1,000 goats. And he was shearing his sheep
in Carmel because this was a festive year at this time, celebrating
the Lord's bounty in the land. Now, the name of the man was
Nabal. And the name of his wife was
Abigail. And she was a woman of good understanding
and of a beautiful continence. But the man was curlish. That
means he was a fool. And he was evil in his doings.
and he was of the House of Taylor. We have now set our triplet of
persons that will engage the narrative. All three persons
are going to come into view here in a moment. The first two people
that are going to meet is the strong man and the fool. And
they're, for all intents and purposes, are going to have a
contest, are they not? And this contest is going to
lead to them locking horns. and the leading of them to locking
horns is going to require somebody to do what? Mediate. Intervene. Point number one then as we work
our way through the outline, here is what I'm saying as I
opened up around the danger of you and me getting caught up
in the addictive pattern of conflict and war so much. Point number
one, the shift from dependence on divine providence to personal,
what? Power. The shift from divine
providence to personal power. And this statement is being made
about David. This is being made about David.
I want you to get this. David has subtly shifted his dependence
from the providence of God to his intrinsic ability to be a
warrior. Now that'll happen to you. God
will use you mightily in many areas and he will demonstrate
that he has gifted you in a certain capacity. And you will be exercising
your gift. I don't care what gift it is.
And over time you will get used to your gift bringing you through
to where you will stop trusting in God who gave you the gift
and then start relying upon the gift itself. Now when you do
that, you're going to set yourself up for chastisement as David
is about to do here. So I want you to follow me with
my argument. I believe that verses 5 through
8, by the way David actually engages with Nabal, proves to
me that David had not trusted in God as this being an assignment
by which he needed God's help. What David does, if you recall
the verses, listen to what it says in verse 5 through 8. I'm
going to start at verse 5. And David sent out ten young
men And David said unto the young man, get you up to Carmel, go
to Nabal and greet him. Are you ready, ladies and gentlemen?
In my name. Let me keep going. And thus shall
you say to him that liveth, watch this, in prosperity. Peace be
both to thee and peace be to your house and peace be to all
that you have. Woo. Peace, peace, peace on everything
you have, you who prosper. Do you see where this is going?
Do you see how David has carefully couched his language to try to
achieve something on the basis of not who God is, but who he
is and who this man is? Do you see how David temporarily
lost his mind and got caught up on the horizontal? He really
actually is playing a kind of respect of persons. because he's
building on what he asserts or assumes is a wealthy prominent
man who would be willing to interact with David on the basis of who
David is. Point number one and point number
two are simple. I just want you to consider it.
You don't have to believe me, but I think this is true. I think
David was telling him who he is as a kind of a shakedown on
his boys for his men having protected them and been a wall around them
and allowed them to prosper in all that they did. Can believers
act like that? Can believers actually shake
down a brother? Can you press down your good
deeds and your benevolent acts on someone with the objective
of them directly rewarding you because of what you did for them?
I'm talking about believers who have the Spirit of God and the
Word of God in them. Can believers lose their mind
for a moment and act like Al Capone? Okay, so I'm really trying
to get you to understand that there is a shift Subtle shift
in David's dependence from God to himself. And he's trusting
that his resume will open the door for him. And I'm here to
tell you only God opens doors. Your resume doesn't open doors.
Your good deeds don't open doors. What you did yesterday doesn't
open doors. God opens doors. And what David
is about to find out is what it's like to try to do a business
deal that really needs to be done without God. So again, under
point number one, the shift from dependence on divine providence
to personal power. And what do I mean by the shift
from dependence upon divine providence? When you and I learn how to walk
with God, we learn how to discern God's will, his favor, his smile,
and his presence in a situation that we're in. When you and I
learn how to walk with God, don't we learn how to be sensitive
to the presence of God in a thing? The approval of God upon a thing? Are we not sensitive to the fact
that God may or may not open a door? Are we not dependent
and couched in a way, when our head is right, that we need to
actually exercise the biblical protocol essential to us affirming
to ourselves that we're not depending on ourselves, we're depending
on God. Right. So what that means is, is that
you and I are not going to falter to mechanisms, hoping that our
mechanism will open the door, but rather we're going to maintain
a relationship with God where we're talking to him about the
situation, hoping that he goes before us and does what's necessary
to make sure we have favor in that situation. Are you hearing
me? Very important. If you and I
would presume upon our person in any situation, be ready to
be rebuked. If you and I would depend upon,
you know, I've been working at this company for five years.
I've been working hard. I come in early, I stay late.
And you're depending on that to give you a promotion? Be ready
to be rebuked. Because it was only God's mercy
that woke you up early every morning, gave you strength and
gave you a soundness of mind and gave you the gift of perseverance
to get the work. And then he restrained you from
your natural funky attitude and gave you the grace to behave
on your job. See, in other words, we're shifting
from that sensitive, acute dependence that every believer ought to
have on God to now on our good words. Are you guys hearing what
I'm saying? It's subtle, but it happens.
Now watch this, when you and I shift from a grace-based life,
where good works flow out of what? Grace, not self. When we shift from a grace-based
life, we are shifting from God to self, and we always gon' wanna
get paid. Some of y'all get what I'm saying
already, don't you? I've been teaching this for years. And
one of the reasons when new members come into grace, new people come
into grace, we don't let them start helping us out at all until
they understand what grace is. Because I know the average person
coming through the door won't want to get paid. And they want to
get paid in some form or another because they're not conscious
of what it means to serve gratuitously based upon what God has done
for them. I'm just telling you how it goes.
See, I know human beings very well. So one of the things we
tell people to do is sit down, learn the gospel, learn what
grace is, make sure you're right with God, and then ask to do
something. That makes good sense. That makes
good sense. David said to the man, tell him
who I am. Isn't that wild? See, here's what's going on.
David has forgotten actually who he is. See, had David remembered
that back in 1 Samuel 24, verse 14, he admitted the king saw
that he wasn't nothing but a small little thing that God was hunting
down. A flea upon the mountains. A
flea upon the mountains. Go tell Nabal, I'm a flea upon
the mountains. Look at it. After who is the
king of Israel come out? After whom do you pursue? After
a dead dog. After a what? Now see, if you
give that resume to Nabal, you're not gonna get nowhere. Tell Nabal
a dead dog has come to him and he got police. David forgot that he was nothing
without God. And we can do that. We can forget
that without God, we can do what? That's right. We can forget it. All right, so then let's move
on to point number two, because I don't want to have to build many arguments
with this through scripture, but I certainly could. You guys
know that the Bible is clear about these things. When I use
the term a kind of shakedown in point number B, I'm using
Luke 6, 38. You have to go there. The Lord says, give, and it shall
be given unto you, right? Press down, shaken together,
running over. Shall men pour into your bosoms? You know that
rule, right? It's the law of reciprocation. And one of the things I'm teaching
in rewards class is don't let Grace-filled believers live a
raggedy life and think that that honors God. That's what I'm teaching
in rewards class. I'm teaching us that grace leads
to good works and good works always leads to rewards because
God always blesses obedience. He always does. You're going
to see that at the end of the message. And so what I'm saying
is don't have a funky attitude about what you do for God because
the revenues that's going to come back are going to correspond
with that funky attitude. Like what David is about to experience
is called a rebound because his attitude was wrong. Are you guys
hearing me? These are what we call temporary
blessings as a consequence or temporary rewards as a consequence
of sowing either good deeds or bad deeds. Remember this, 200
point B, this will help you. When you do good to someone in
your assignment to behave a certain way and to yield yourself a sacrifice
and to bless people by your services, Child of God, this is gonna help
you. This is gonna help you. Look for your reward from God. Look for your reward from God.
In other words, don't get an assignment from God to bless
person B and demand that person B pay you back. Because once
you do that, you're not a servant of God anymore. You're a servant
of yourself or a servant of men. God always pays his servants
back, doesn't he? He always blesses our deeds.
And he tells us sometimes, give and ask not for it again, because
I, your God, will never forget your labor of love, our work
of faith that you showed to the saints. I'll pay you back. And
I'd rather God pay me back than someone out there. See, I believe
that David is trying to shake old Navel down. And God is getting
ready to teach us something about the shift in the paradigms, the
shift in the models here. He already showed us how that
actually, when you are engaged in war and you are fighting an
adversary, that if you're not careful about being insulated
in that battle, you can become like your adversary. See, right
now, David is taking on a little bit of Saul's attributes. So
you're gonna see a little bit of Saul and David here in a moment.
And that happens. That happens. Point number two,
God speaks through a fool. Hallelujah. That's a praise break. You better get that. Hallelujah. God speaks through a fool. That means that gives us the
opportunity to be used by God from time to time. See, y'all
missed that. See, y'all think everybody else is a fool but
you. I know that. I know that. So you say, okay,
maybe he does. The reality is, apart from God's
mercy, he would never speak through you and me. So God speaks through a fool. And
what I'm doing now is going to really show you something very
powerful. That what's taking place in our context is really
not so much a horizontal offense, but a vertical offense. God is
offended. And he's showing up in the narrative
to let one knucklehead servant of his to know. that he's offended
by what David is doing. Now, when you set out to do a
thing and you make your plans and you work them out and you
cross your T's and you dot your I's and you put your bold letter
and you underline the points that you want to emphasize and
you can't wait to go in to argue your point and the door shuts
on you, don't you get upset? Well, who are you upset with?
Isn't it God that opens doors? Why are you upset? See what I'm
getting at? And it's because, as we're about
to see, until a lady shows up in this narrative, God is nowhere
to be mentioned. And that's a shame. Until a lady
shows up in this narrative, this is about two men having a pissing
contest. I didn't say that, David said
it. Can y'all see that though? Can
you see that? I know you're in the house of the Lord. Can you
see it though? Two men getting ready to go at it. David says,
give Nabal my card. Nabal looks at his card and throws
it in the air and says, who is David? Let's go. Let's go. Who is David? Now you
got the powerful and the rich battling. Point number two. I think God is with me in this
revelation. Some of y'all might get it. Some of you might not.
Verse 10 and 11 tells us God speaks to a fool. Here is how
he speaks. And Nabal answered David's servants
and said, Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse?
Now, before we go to the last clause, the author wants you
to know that Nabal knows who Jesse is and Nabal knows who
David is. But his question is, who is David? Since David wants to present
himself. What Nabal is saying is, why is David presenting himself
as if David is something? And God will use a fool to tell
you that. Have you ever been rebuked by
a fool? Have you ever heard God talking directly, specifically,
acutely to you through a fool? And you say, Lord, I hear you.
I hear you. Because that's what's going on
here. Here's what he says in verse 11. Shall I then take my
bread and my water and my flesh that I have killed for my shares
and give it unto men whom I know not whence they be? That's verse
11. And that comes on the heels of
him saying, listen, all kind of dudes done broke away from
their masters. They got their little entourage and they running
all around the kingdom trying to start their own business.
Sounds like he's describing local churches, isn't he? Preachers
breaking away, start their own little posse. It's true. In actuality, the whole of this
is a gospel paradigm. I'm just trying to stay on the
practical because you need the practical. But this is all about the gospel.
Christ sends out his servants, preaching gospel truth to people
and blessing them. And Christ expects returns from
them. And many of them reject his servants.
Do you see that? I'll leave you with that. But
on the practical level, God is speaking very clearly to us about
how we do ministry or how we serve or how we give without
God's endorsement and approval. And God shuts the door by allowing
this fool to do three things in our point. One is, based upon
verse 10 and 11, it appears that Nabal believed the report that
was given through Saul and to Saul, right? It was given to
Saul in 1 Samuel chapter 24 verse 9, as David said to Saul himself,
why are you believing all of these reports that David is out
to kill you? Why are you believing that I
am building an army to attack you? Do you guys see it? David
said to Saul, wherefore heareth thou the men's words? Wherefore
heareth thou whose words? Men's words. Wherefore are you
hearing men's word when you are a king? When you are a ruler,
let me show you a truth. This is why I say David here
now is slipping inadvertently into Saul's place. Because Saul
was listening to men, which is what you do when you don't have
connection with God. And the men were getting in Saul's
head because they want the bounty money to get David, don't they?
And so David is appealing to Saul. Last chapter, behold, David
does not seek your hurt. It's amazing. And now we come
to a chapter where a man says to David, yeah, I actually believe
the report. I think you're trying to kill
Saul because the way you're acting, you're holding me up. The way
you're coming at me is you're telling me what you did. And
now you want to give me a bill for it. The way you're acting
is as if I've actually got to respond in favor to you or else. Doesn't that sound like a shakedown?
See, because in all honesty, Nabal did not have to reciprocate
with David because there was no agreement established, which
is what men do in business. Send one of your soldiers to
Nabal and say, Nabal, I know your guys are out in the field.
They're all kind of crazy nuts out there. My boys happen to
be passing through. We'd be glad to watch your men
only feed us. That would have made sense. But
to do it first, And then to come later and said, here's the bill,
well, you're holding me up. This is an inadvertent threat.
Which threat manifested itself by David's response, didn't it?
Which threat appeared by David's response, did it not? This fool
rises up and he speaks for God, and he speaks Believing the report
that was given to Saul and then he answers point number B. Here's
a proverbial aspect of what we call Flawed dialogue. The rough answer is given to
David by Nabal because of the name You guys know what Proverbs
18 13 says right y'all know y'all Bible Proverbs 18 13 the Bible
speaks about the disposition of character when it goes to
request something from people when the attitude is right and
You can hope for the best because generally people will interpret
your attitude more than even your words. Like if you press
on people something that's right, but you do it with a kind of
arrogance and aggressiveness, you might as well expect kickback
and pushback from them because they're reading how you are saying
it more than what you are saying. Do you see the proverb? Y'all
see the proverb? Listen to what the proverb says.
Why am I at Proverbs? Oh, that's another one. That's
unfortunate. That's not the one that I want. Which one? 23. OK, go to 23. Proverbs 18.
23. Then we'll go back to 13 later. Here's what Proverbs 18.
23 says. The poor useth what? Now, you
know, you can argue that the narrative is actually laying
out David's case. But I'm telling you, it does
not appear to me that David is using entreaties. It appears
to me that David is subtly expecting Nabal to reward him for labor
for which him and Nabal did not agree. Okay? And that's because David has
shifted from depending upon God to depending upon himself. Now
within himself, he feels that Nabal is indebted to him. Now
when you act like that, you have failed to make God the person
from whom all blessings flow. and you are depending on men.
This works in marriages to destroy it often, where one spouse completely
depends upon the other spouse in the absence of God. And now
you are demanding on that spouse to give you something that really
only God can give you. Am I making some sense, saints?
Am I making some sense? And where there is actually a
healthy relationship in families between husbands and wives is
where both husbands and wives know how to draw from the well
of grace blessings that they know that their spouse cannot
give them. Because there are times when you cannot give your
spouse what they need. And you need that same reciprocal
outlet coming from God. In this context, the poor using
entreaties But the rich answering what? Who is the rich person
here? Naval. He's answering David roughly
because David is using the wrong name by way of request. I believe that David should have
went to God. I believe that David should have prayed to God like
he prayed in every other situation, and asked the Lord, Lord, should
I engage with this man Nabal, this wealthy man Nabal, this
prominent man Nabal, for the welfare of my men? Lord, should
I stop here or should I keep moving on? To me that would have
made good sense. Would God have spoken to David?
Of course he would have. Would God have told David the
same thing that Nabal's wife is about to tell David? David,
this man's a fool. Let him go. Go on down the road.
I got provisions for you down the road. But I'm just sharing
with you what happens when we shift unwittingly. from dependence
upon God to dependence upon self. You guys got that principle?
All right, then it's very clear. Looking then under the second
point, three things under that second point, the report of Saul
believed by Nabal, the rough answer given because it was the
wrong name given by David. And finally, God alone has to
give us what? I think you guys are persuaded
of that. John 15 five, Jesus says, without me, you can do
what? All right, so Nabal answers David
roughly And boy, what did he do that for? Point number three,
a self-righteous response. A self-righteous response. Can anyone argue with me that
David is now steeped in self-righteousness? He's steeped in it. See, because
David is offended. David's not offended for God.
David is offended for himself. He stuck his name out there and
his name got mud all on it and his boys brought his name back
to the camp with mud on it. And look, I want you to see this.
I want you to see how religious folk act. Even Christians act
this way. Look at what it says in verse
13. Are you there? It says, and David
said unto his men, Put your sword on. Go get your Uzi. Go get your Glocks. We rolling. I love the way the narrative
puts it, because the narrative wants you to know David is temporarily
insane. The man is temporarily insane.
Watch it now. David said unto the man, gird
on every man his sword, and they did. a girded on every minute
sort, which tells me, and I'm getting ready to show you that,
David's men were always bloodthirsty. Good, now we got somebody to
kill. I've been kicking it with David, and all we've been doing
is running for two and a half years. I mean, we cleaned out
a few Philistines, but man, now we get to go to work. We get
to get it all. Yes. You know how they do in
the hood. Get pumped up. I mean, all he
had to do was say it once, put your shirt on. Everybody put
their, they strapped up. Did they strap up? And then the
narrative said, and David strapped up too. And there went up after David
about 400 men. 400 men. If this is not overkill,
I don't know. 400 warriors. Coming down the hill on a handful
of sheep shearers David you a mess boy See what's
going on you see how the Holy Ghost is showing us the ship
from David to King Saul Because King Saul is just as insane as
David is coming after David as David is coming after Nabal.
I This is how the narrative works to teach you and I practical
lessons about the danger of losing our identity in Christ. When you and I shift from dependence
upon Christ and awareness of who we are in Christ and the
mission, the mission that belongs to us as assigned by Christ to
us, now we're going to default to our own mission. And whenever
we put issues into our own hand, as the New Testament puts it
very clearly, vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord.
Point number one, then, under self-righteousness, self-righteous
response, verses 12, 13, and then 21 and 22 also underscore
what David wants to do. Look at what it says in verse
21 and 22. Now, David had said, surely in
vain have I kept all this fellow half in the wilderness. Do you
see it? so that nothing was missed of all that pertained to him,
and yet required it evil to me rather than good." Now see, I
know if you guys are honest as I am, that when you sit around
with people that's mad, don't they build a massive case as
justification for what they want to do? And yet, is it not true
that in all of this narrative that we're listening to, God
is not in the equation? It's very true. And this is where
I said to you several weeks ago, when you're listening to Christians
talk at length, if you don't hear God in the conversation,
back up and become even more objective because you are about
to get in trouble when you sign off on their conversation where
God is not in it. Y'all know what I'm talking about.
You know, your girlfriend just rolling. She just rolling. She
just rolling. She building and stacking, building and stacking,
building and stacking. It's looking good. And she wants
you to sign off on it. You better ask the question now,
now, now, sweetheart, where's God in all this? Right? Because God's nowhere in this.
God is nowhere in David's conversation. God is nowhere in Nabal's conversation.
All we see here is hostilities in a warfare context which has
escalated to major battle, unreasonable and irrational on its premise. Here it is, verse 22. So and
more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave all that
pertains to him by the morning light, anyone that kisseth against
the wall. Told you God uses nasty language
too. I'm just letting you know See in the 21st century movie
y'all know how that would have been twisted, right? But what
God is saying is when we get carnal, this is how we talk When
we're brought down to the earth where it's just about us. This
is how we talk David is about to commit genocide He doesn't
want anything of Naples to live and he's actually invoking God's
name and That's how twisted we get. That's how twisted we get. That's how twisted we get. So
under point number three, a self-righteous response, I'm going to quickly
run through these. A subtle hardening of the heart through war. You
guys got that right? David's heart is hardening through war.
Point B, the impact of the men taking its toll. What do I mean
by that? David's men had constantly been saying to David, David,
God is giving you your enemies. Kill them. God has placed your
enemies into your hand. Everywhere we go, God sets you
up to wipe them out. And David has been holding back
indiscretion, wisely not responding to the words of men. But it's
still seeping into his head. And on this occasion, he feels
as if he should move out. Point number three, R.C., David
takes the bait, doesn't he? This time he takes the bait.
Now, here's the principle. This is proverbial in nature.
I want you to get this. James 1, verse 19. We've quoted
it before. particularly in the context of
discreet and indiscreet words. James says in James 119 around
conflicts that occur through words that you and I are to be
swift to what? Wherefore, my beloved brethren,
let every man be swift to what? Now, I want you to mark that
for a moment. Do you understand how much grace is required when
somebody says something to you that you don't like? that threatens
you for you to hold your response and hear the matter out completely
which takes us back to Proverbs 18 13 he that speaketh before
he hears a matter it is folly and shame unto him The moment
that you go to reacting to something rather than squarely assessing
the totality of the statement and the implications that fall
out from it, you set yourself up for a trap. Ladies and gentlemen,
do you know there are people who are out there who are experts
in trapping you in debates? Experts at trapping you in arguments. Experts at setting you up because
they know you will pounce on a thing in a moment without being
careful. And yet, If you and I start to exercise the grace
of being swift to hear, it will teach us how to be slow to speak.
David was not slow to speak. He was quick to speak, wasn't
he? And he was slow to hear. Quick to speak, slow to hear.
And because he was quick to speak, slow to hear, he was quick to
what? Wrath. That's what's coming out of our
text now. Wrath on David's part. He gonna kill everything in the
man's house. Is that not King Saul? Is that
not Herod in the first century when Herod was going to kill
everything in Jerusalem just to get at Jesus? Insane. Here's your paradigms. We're
almost done. We're almost done. So under a
self-righteous response, a subtle hardening of the heart, the impact
of the men taking its toll, David takes the bait. I build my argument
on Proverbs 16, 7. You don't have to go there. God
says this. When a man's ways please the
Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. Now,
I love this. See, if David had done the right
thing, even though Nabal was a fool, God could have opened
the door. Hasn't God opened the door for
you with fools? You've gone in and been blessed
by God's hand of favor in your life and you still know that
person is a fool. You know they don't like you.
They don't really care for you, but they can't do anything because
God has opened that door. Now you in that door, you're
being blessed by God's provisions. Now you got to watch yourself
because they're a snake and you know they might just bite you.
Is that true? Right. But that's God humbling you too.
Because see, God wants you to be careful around snakes. He
wants you to carry yourself right. Because you and I, when we're
not careful, can become snakes. And we can turn around and bite
people too. I got a bunch of people bobbing their head up
and down. Yes. And I'm glad for that because you've got to be
honest when you're in church. Church doesn't do you any good
when it builds cases that don't correspond to reality. See, we're
here to be helped by God's grace, are we not? We're not here to
play church. We're not here to be swabbed, as it were, by God's
grace and then allow us to go out there to continue living
raggedy lives. The lights are on. Are the lights on? The lights
on. The lights on. The lights on. They flashing
all through the house right now. That's what the word of God does,
and it flashes in our hearts. And it tells us that we are inclined
to be like David and like Nabal apart from God's mercy. All right. Fourth point, then, that we want
to consider is how God continues to speak. Point number four,
are you there? A soft answer of a wise tongue. The soft answer of a wise tongue,
parentheses what? God speaks what? Now, this is
quite interesting because this statement here actually develops
a bridge between where we are and the next mistake that David
is going to make. So let me show you how God works
before I develop this last second to the last point here. When
God, who knows the end from the beginning, when God, who has
already carved out your path because he had ordained our works
from the foundation of the world, has he not? When God, who knows
what your life is about to be, also sees how that your actions
and your choices can derail you, he will, in his mercy, first
speak Gently to you Are you hearing me he will speak softly to us
and that's what God is about to do right here with this woman
Oh, she's a bigger Storyline than I have any time to deal
with this is where my sisters and I will unpack sister Abigail
at length Deconstruct her and see all kinds of wonderful truth
about her life for us We can't do it today, but we will this
woman here becomes the soft answer to to David's rough speech, to
David's arrogant, pompous assumption that he can just rogue over people,
run over people, rogue. And God is going to whisper to
David today. Aren't you glad when God whispers
to us? Now watch this. I'm going to give you the fundamental
principle here. If God whispers to you today, it means he entrusts
you to respond to the whisper. When God whispers to us, it means
that our hearts have not been so hardened that we're so insane
that we can't hear God's whisper. The whisper is designed to let
you know, David, I'm still with you. I still love you. You haven't messed up really
bad, son, but I actually want you to pause now and take a look
at yourself. Is that what God does to us?
Does he tell us, slow down now? You're stumbling. No one sees
it. You're stumbling. Now you're gonna fall if you
don't take heed to what I'm saying. This is called a soft answer.
And this comes from the proverb. You know it. Proverbs chapter
15, verse 1. A soft answer does what? Turns
away wrath. Is that what this sister is about
to do? I could preach a whole nother message on her delivery.
Powerful! Soft answer turns away wrath,
but grievous word stirs up what? There you go. It appears to to
enable that David's words were grievous because they stirred
up anger in him. I want you to see a woman who
intervenes and I'm going to quickly run through these in order to
develop this last and final point. Show us a redemptive truth and
then we get to go home. The soft answer of a wise tongue,
God speaks again. Why? Because so far in the story,
there is one person conspicuously missing from the dialogue and
that person has been God. The person that's going to speak
now is going to be a woman who is going to speak so eloquently
for god That all david can do is bow to god through her Sub
point number one. We call this a humble mediation
a humble mediation. Why do I say that look at verse
23? Look at the way abigail comes to david Watch this in verse
23. Are you there? And when abigail
saw david she hastened Lighted off of her ass and fell before
David on her face and bowed herself to the ground. Do you see it?
amazing amazing Do you see you probably don't get it? But God
has bestowed upon this woman a level of grace that is a consequence
of revelation and insight that he gave her she understands the
predicament well and I mean she understands it well because her
young men have come back to tell her all the good that David and
his men did and all the evil that her husband did and she
has assessed it properly. Guess what? She was slow to speak. She was quick to hear and she
waited out fully and understood the broad implications of what
would occur if there was no mediator. And God gave her the grace not
to sit back and say, you know, my husband, a fool. I've been
waiting for this day all my life. Now, sisters, don't take that
up. Don't take that up. Don't take that up. Don't run with
that. Don't run with that. Don't run with that. I've been waiting
for this day. Bless the Lord. What? Bless the
Lord. Here's the problem. Here's the
problem. Here's the problem. And this
is where mediation is the principle I taught you a couple of weeks
ago. When you are a legitimate mediator, When you stand in the
gap as an intercessor, you are an individual who has favor with
both sides of the equation. You actually have favor with
the one who is at odd with the other person. You stand between
the two because you have sincere interest in both. The very fact
that Abigail goes to David means she honors her marriage. I want you to get it. This is
where we're going to go in our first class, ladies. Because
Abigail, according to God, is a queen. Abigail is God's queen. That's so good. And when you're
God's queen and you act like God's queen, God blesses you
in ways that are unimaginable. The situation is dire, but God
calls his queen to fix the problem. That's why I said earlier, you
got a strong man and a fool battling for the same space. Now you need
the arbitration of a wise person. God said, sister, I need you
to handle this. And the first thing she does
is she bows before David in a prostration that lets David know that she
knows exactly who he is. She doesn't have a woman here
that's ready to enter into the pissing contest. She's not a
woman that's ready to stand before David and say, I'm a rich wife.
Yes, I'm married to a fool, but I'm a rich woman and I want to
talk to you. No, that's not Abigail. Abigail
is truly wise. truly of good understanding,
like the text says. This woman was a woman of good
understanding and beautiful. And she humbled herself and prostrated
herself before the king with her neck out. Do you know what
that means? She was ready to take the fury
of the king as a mediator for her whole family. It's amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Look at verse
24. This is amazing. Look at verse
24. She fell at his feet and said,
upon me, my Lord, upon me, let this iniquity be. What is she
doing now? She's vicariously substituting
for the rebel sin of her husband, Nabal. And she's saying to David,
let me be his substitute. Do you see the gospel here? Do
you see the humility of Christ here? Do you see his substitutionary
work? Do you see how in Abigail Christ
is manifesting the humility of suffering for guilty hell-bound
sinners? It's beautiful. It's beautiful.
Let their iniquity be upon me. Now watch this. And upon this
disposition of humility, Upon assuming the responsibility of
the sins of not just your husband, but the whole family Because
see David's about to kill everything She's mediating for the whole
house She's got a big family. She's got a big company and she's
standing in the gap for every one of them Do you see the gospel
picture? It's a larger narrative picture.
That's beautiful She's standing in the gap and here's what she's
saying David. Will you let me speak from this
position? She fell at his feet, said unto
him, unto me, O Lord, unto me be this iniquity, and let your
handmaiden, I pray thee, watch this, speak in your hearing,
in your presence, from the position of being a mediator and a substitute. So what David now has to do is
back up and think about the fact that what he has in front of
him is a lamb, ready to be slaughtered. as a propitiation for the sins
of people that the king think is worthy of death. Whoa! So David is in the position of
God the Father. And Sister Abigail is in the
position of God the Son. And all the guilty sinners are
being mediated by a woman who says, let me speak to you through
the blood atoning work. of my sacrifice on their behalf. Will you hear me through the
blood? David ain't got no choice now. The boy's hooked. He ain't got
no choice. See, she has actually exposed
David. So let's go on and deal with
our sub points. She's a humble mediator and she gives a gift
that we know what pacify verse 27 tells us these words you'll
see in verse 27 it says and now this blessing which thine handmaid
hath brought unto my lord let it even be given unto the young
men that follow my lord do you see verse 27 do you remember
what gap abigail brought verse 18 abigail made haste to 200
loaves of bread two big old bottles of wine five sheep already hooked
up with dressing and gravy and potatoes and salad and everything. Five measures of parched corn.
Those are tortilla shells, I'm kidding. And a hundred clusters
of raisins, 200 cakes of figs. And she put them on, that's just
became packet, didn't she? David had pistols, she had food. This amazing story. I love God. See, because last week what we
learned in our message was, do good to them that what? That's
what Abigail is here. She's a picture of grace, working
as a substitute for sinners, appealing to the king whose wrath
has been kindled. And she wants to now appease
him. And as the proverb puts it, this is where we get our
opening, our sub point here, as the proverb puts it, think
it's proverbs 21 14 um a gift given in secret pacifying and
this is in secret because she has come to david alone she hasn't
made any big fanfare out of it she hasn't uh here it is a gifted
secret does what pacified anger and a reward in the bosom what
leave that up there while i'll talk because i want to i want
to exegete that just a bit while we're going so what she does
is she realizes that what David and them needed, she could provide.
So she brings what David requests to David for David and their
men because of their labors. The matter is solved. There's
no controversy around what you expected, David. Here it is.
On top of what you asked for, I'm ready to lay down my life
for all these people you want to kill. Now I'm ready to be
a spotless lamb to satisfy your justice. against these men as
you see fit. Take the blessing for your labors
and take me for your satisfaction of justice. It's an amazing woman,
is it not so? An amazing woman. Watch how this
falls out then. When we talk about the gift and
secret, the term secret here has always to do with the mystery
of the gospel. You and I know that Christ is
God's secret, is he not? We also know that Christ is God's
means by which his wrath is satisfied. Is that true? He made an atonement
for sin. He propitiated for our sins.
God poured out his wrath upon him, and it was all done in secret,
was it not? He came to do his father's business. Nobody knew
about it, not even the disciples. And see, when you are called
upon to mitigate and to resolve a conflict with your adversary,
the Bible says, go to him or her alone. Don't be telling everybody
on your way. Because we do that, don't we?
Girl, come on with me, because I got to tell this woman something.
And I want to tell you what I'm going to tell her. See, once
you do that, you marred the sacrifice. You marred the sacrifice. See,
it indicates that our character is flawed when we're not willing
to go to the person themselves. We got to go to somebody else
and build a whole case to get their affirmation, and then go
to them with our posse. Jesus said, go to them first. to demonstrate the sincerity
of your heart so that that person and you can work it out. And
the goal is to win your brother. And what Abigail is about to
do is win David, is she not? I'm way too long. Let me close
out here. Listen to what it says. Not only is it a gift that pacifies
in secret, point number C, a major prophetic insight. Watch how
Abigail speaks. I want you to hear this. Again,
we will not develop this, but I want you to hear this. Verses
26 through 29, I call this a prophetic insight. Are you with me? Here
it is. Now, therefore, my Lord, as the
true and living God lives, now she's invoking God too, isn't
she? And as your soul lives, seeing the Lord hath withholding
thee from coming to shed blood. Is that good? Do you understand
what this sister just said? You ain't gonna do it, boy. You
ain't gonna do it. You're not gonna do it now. I already dropped
all the blessings on you. The Lord has withholding you
from shedding blood. Now watch this. Then she goes
on to say, and from avenging yourself. This is what we call in my final
point here, a gracious and effectual what? Reprove. Is that in your
outline? Gracious and effectual because
didn't she just correct him boy. You're here to avenge herself
God is opening David's eyes through this woman Listen to the language
as it goes on to avenge herself. He goes on to say Avenge yourself
with your own hand now Let your enemies and they that seek evil
to my lord be as home now see in this Aspect of the mediatorial
work. You know what she's doing. She's
being honest This is what we call confession. When you go
to God and you confess, tell the truth. Her husband is a fool. And all she's doing is being
honest. My husband is the fool that he is. That's the reason
why he did what he did. And she also knows that God's
judgment is hanging on his head. because she has prophetic insight.
Look at what it goes on to say. Watch this verse 27. And now
this blessing which is in your handmaid have brought and I have
brought to my Lord. Let it be given unto the young
man that follow my Lord. I pray thee forgive the trespass
of your wife. Now she's owning it for herself. For the Lord will certainly make
my Lord a sure what? because my Lord fighteth the
battles of the what? Woo, crazy. Is this girl all
up in David's business or what? Is she making David to know right
now that the Lord speaks to more than just David? Does she not
let David know that she has read his mail and she knows the end
of the story? She has made David a major case
study. And this is how she's getting
to his heart. Because the gift given in secret and the reward
in the bosom is her being able to speak to his heart. And she's
got him. David is blown away by a woman
that knows more about him than he knows about himself. That's
how you get a brother, by the way. That's how you get a brother.
All right, let me go on. Now watch this now. This is good. So verse 28 goes on to say, The
Lord will certainly make your house sure because you fight
the battles of the Lord and evil hath not been found in thee all
your what? Ah, she's warning him. You're
on the brink of evil. Don't you do it. Yet a man is
risen up to pursue you and to seek your soul. Who is she talking
about now? King Saul. But the soul of my
Lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord your God. Do you see it? But God has covered
you with his hand. He has shrouded you with his
feathers. Even though your enemies come at you, God has protected
you, David. She's preaching to him, isn't
she? And then watch the last hook that she uses. This is beautiful. And the soul of your enemies,
them shall he sling out as out of the middle of a sling. I wasn't
there, David, but the Lord, he gave me a revelation. And I saw
what he did through you to the giant. Is David's heart smitten? That boy didn't fell down on
the ground. He's coming apart at the seams because this woman
has spoken graciously, eloquently, prophetically, powerfully, reproving
a wise man. As the proverb says, reprove
a wise man and he will increase in learning. Are you guys getting
the lesson? All right, we're just about done
here. Show you a typological truth here as we wrap this up.
This is under your last point. Let's just close here for time's
sake. The wise woman becomes what? Is that your outline? All
right, so I'm going to just run these three or four points by
you. And you can see this in verses 36 through the end of
the chapter. Unbelieving Nabal what? Yes,
he does. Crazy how he does. She comes
home. She says, hey, Nabal. Yeah, I
had to holler at David. He was going to kill you. The
brother was drunk. And she just kept on walking
through the kitchen after she said it. He was going to kill you.
I hollered at him though. And the brother froze in his seat
and had a stroke and laid up for 10 days in a stroke and died. God avenged David, but only after
David had to humble himself. Believing Abigail is what? Hallelujah. That's just to say
I'm free. free from this fool and God did
it. She knew he was. She knew he
was. And then guess what happens providentially?
The queen ends up marrying the king because the queen is a type
of the church and a type of every true believer who is first married
to the law. And then when we die in Christ
to the law, we are free to marry another. And that other is Jesus
Christ, our Lord, who is typified by David. Do you see that? Typified
by David. This is what we call the gospel.
That's why we say, lo, I come in the volume of the book. It's
written of me to do thy will, O God. Now watch this. I'm closing
right here. Watch this. All of our marriages
down here fall short of the glory of God. Are you hearing me? All
of our marriages down here fall short of the glory of God. But
every one of us has another husband in the Lord Jesus, who is typified
by David, which makes us queens of God, worthy of us rejoicing
in. I'm done. I'm done. I'm done.
We're going to have the offering and closing prayer. I'm done.