Let's open tonight's service
with hymn number 23 from the hardbacked hymnal. Hymn number
23, come we that love the Lord. Let's all stand together, number
23. Come we that love the Lord, and
let our joys be known. Join in a song with sweet accord,
and thus surround the throne. Let those refuse to sing, who
never knew our God, but children of the heavenly King may speak
their joys abroad. The hill of Zion yields a thousand
sacred streets. Before we reach the heavenly
fields or walk the golden streets, And let our songs abound, and
every tear be dry. We're marching through Emmanuel's
crown to fairer worlds on high. Please be seated. I pray the Lord will keep us
mindful of that. We're walking through Emmanuel's
ground to fairer worlds on high. I reckon that the sufferings
of this present life cannot be compared to the glory that shall
be revealed in us. What hope, what hope. I want
to read for our scripture reading tonight Psalm 105, the first
10 verses of Psalm 105. Welcome our brethren from Sarasota. They're meeting this evening. Also, I want us to pray for Charles. He's home and has some doctor's
appointments coming up. Lauren Culver is leaving the
16th, most of you all know, to go to Germany to meet with the
doctor over there to get some treatment for Lyme's disease
and I told her that we would be in prayer for her. Psalm 105,
you have your Bibles open. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord,
call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people. That's what we've come to do,
to make known his deeds. Sing unto him, sing songs unto
him, talk ye of all his wondrous works. Oh, and they are wondrous. They're full of wonder. Glory
ye in his holy name. Let the heart of them rejoice
that seek the Lord. Oh, Lord, would you enable us
to rejoice in you right now? To delight in your mercies and
to rejoice in your promises. Seek the Lord and his strength. Seek his face evermore. It's just that we're not seeking
a doctrine, we're not seeking, you know, just some impersonal
truth. We're seeking the person of Christ. Remember his marvelous works
that he hath done, his wonders and the judgments of his mouth. Oh, call to memory what he's
done. The fact that He's executed judgment
against all our sin, put them away once and for all by the
sacrifice of Himself, presented Himself before God Almighty as
our righteousness, and He's given us His Word. He's spoken to us. How many generations, I've thought
a lot about this recently, how many generations of believers
suffered in this world without a copy of God's Word. The only time they ever had access
to the Word of God was when they came together and someone had
a rare copy of a text that they could read. And here we have,
for ourselves, the full canon of God's Word. Oh, Lord, give
me a hunger to hear Thy Word. He is the Lord our God. His judgments are in all the
earth. He hath redeemed, remembered,
I'm sorry, His covenant forever. He's never been unmindful of
His covenant. The covenant that He established
in Himself before time began, He's always held us in that covenant. David said, this is all my salvation
and this is all my desire. God has made a covenant with
me. The word which he commanded to
a thousand generations, which covenant he made with Abraham
and his oath unto Isaac and confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law. What is the law? It's the law
of grace. It's the law of the spirit. It's
the law of love. It's the covenant. We're not
under the letter of the law. That law's been satisfied. It's been fulfilled. We're under
a new law, a better law, a greater law. Confirm the same unto Jacob
for a law and to Israel for an everlasting covenant. Let's pray together. Our heavenly Father, we pray that you would send your
Holy Spirit in power that you would bless your word to our
hearts, revealing to us the wondrous works of the Lord Jesus Christ,
giving to us a place where we can hide, a place of refuge,
a place of hope, that you would confirm to our hearts your promises
and give to us, Lord, the faith to believe them. Lord, we come before you as sinners
and we thank you, Lord, that we have a savior, one who is
perfectly righteous and one in whom we have perfect righteousness. For it's in his name we ask it.
Amen. Let's stand together again. We'll
sing hymn number 42 from the softback tenor, number 42. In myself I have no merit, nothing
good have I to give, that a holy, just, and perfect God could ever
let me live. Sin defiles my best performance. Guilty, vile, and ruined I am. Yet my heart breaks in repentance. By God's grace I see the Lamb. ? See the Lamb of God our Savior
? ? Bearing all our sin and shame ? ? By eternal love and favor
? ? Jesus died bearing our blame ? ? Bruised and wounded and forsaken
as our substitute ? He died It is finished, sin's forgiven,
justice now is satisfied. Here's my hope and consolation,
Jesus died for sinners' sake. Trusting Him, I have salvation,
and the cup of blessing take. All is well, I cannot doubt it,
God who gave his Son for me rules this world and all things in
it for my good eternally. So I'll trust my God and Savior,
Though my joy is mixed with pain. He is worthy, worthy ever, That
in me His peace should reign. Faith in such a great Redeemer
gives my soul a blessed calm. Christ is near. He's my protector. He will keep me from all harm. Please be seated. You open your Bibles with me
to 1 Samuel chapter 25. 1 Samuel chapter 25. David said it like this, thy
word is exceedingly broad. I'm so thankful that God's word
does not return unto him void. It accomplishes the purpose for
which he sent it. I've titled this message, Sweet,
Sweet Gospel Lessons. Sweet Gospel Lessons. And I'm
convinced that God will teach his children. They shall be all
taught of God. There's so many lessons in this
chapter, and I'm hopeful that the Spirit of God will impress
each of us with one or two of them and cause us to find our
hope in Christ. Samuel, the scripture begins
in verse 1 of chapter 25, telling us that Samuel died. In the Old Testament, Samuel
was the one figure that represented the Lord Jesus Christ most clearly
in his three roles as prophet, priest, and king. Never did the
Lord allow one man to serve in all three of those capacities.
But Samuel was the priest, and Samuel was the prophet of God,
and he served before Israel had a king as their ruler. And so in that regard, Samuel
typifies Christ. Saul has been given to Israel
as king and he has proven himself to be unfit and unfaithful. God has used Samuel to go fetch
young David, Jesse's youngest son, and has anointed him as
king. David has already proved himself
in battle. He's already defeated the Philistines,
and Saul now is jealous of David, fearing that David's gonna take
his throne. And so that's the setting. David
is hiding out with 600 men, waiting for the Lord to provide
him the opportunity to take the leadership of Israel. And Samuel
has died and Saul is looking for David. David is anointed king and yet
he's in need of provisions for his men. And so He sends his
servants to a man by the name of Nabal and ask Nabal if he
could provide some provisions for him and his men. And Nabal,
the scripture says, refused. David determined that he was
going to kill Nabal and all of his family and all of his servants.
At which point, Nabal's wife, Abigail, goes to David and pleads
with David for mercy. David does, for Abigail's sake,
he gives her mercy. This is a picture of God's people
going to Christ and pleading with him for mercy to abate the
judgment and wrath that we're deserving of. Let's read these verses together. Verse 2, and there was a man
in Maon whose possessions were in Carmel. Now, another word
for that word possessions is works. His works were in Carmel. You could see Nabal as a picture
of a man who's trusting in the wealth of his works for his righteousness
before God. He's got no interest in David.
And the man was very great, and he had 3,000 sheep and 1,000
goats, and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. I thought, boy,
there's a picture of a false preacher shearing the sheep,
beating the sheep up, and putting the sheep under the law. And
so here we have this man who's got great possessions, great
wealth, lots of works, and lots of servants, and his servants
are shearing the sheep. Now the name of the man was Nabal,
and the name of his wife, Abigail. She was a woman of good understanding
and of a beautiful countenance, but the man was churlish and
evil in his doings, and he was of the house of Caleb. You could see these two people,
Nabal and Abigail, representing, as we often see in the word of
God, the two types of men that there are in the world. We see
it with Cain and Abel. We see it with Joshua or with
Jacob and Esau. We see it with the two thieves
on the cross on the two sides of the Lord. Over and over again,
the Lord portrays for us the fact that men are in one camp
or the other. They're either believers or they
are unbelievers. They're either in the covenant
of God's grace and covered by the blood of Christ or they are
under the law and subject to judgment. Abigail's name means the praise
of her father. The praise of her father. And
here we see a picture of God's people. who are the praise of
their father. He is pleased with them for Christ's
sake. He delights in them. He delights
in showing mercy to them. He's loved them with an everlasting
love. Oh, that we could see ourselves
and believe ourselves to be like Abigail. If we are, we'll be
going to the son of David with the same spirit that Abigail
goes to the son of David. Here's a beautiful gospel picture
of a sinner coming before Christ, pleading for his mercy. Nabal's
name means foolish, and the scripture describes the unbeliever all
throughout the word of God as a fool. A fool has said in his
heart, no, God, I will not bow, I will not submit, I will not
believe. And here's a picture of every
unbeliever in this world, in Nabal. The scripture says that
he was churlish. That word means hard. It means
that he was cruel. It means that he was a difficult
man. He was obstinate, stiff-necked,
and severe. And that's what the attitude
of all unbelievers are toward the God who is. Now, seeing these
two people as representative of all of men, I also want you
to see Nabal and Abigail as a married couple. Abigail goes to David
and confesses the sin of Nabal and asks David to forgive her
for Nabal. Can you see these two individuals
in yourself? You see them as your own two
natures, one being stiff-necked, one being churlish, one being
unwilling to bow, the flesh being nothing but sin before God, and
then the new nature. of the one who is the praise
of the Father, the one that the Lord has put in us that is perfect
before God and who comes in the same spirit that Abigail comes
before the Lord. What a picture. At the end of
the story, you know what happens to Nabal, don't you? Nabal dies. What do we do with our old man?
We come before the Lord with our old man. The scripture says,
killing every day. Reckon yourselves to be dead
indeed unto sin, but alive unto God. Lord, my old man is crucified
with Christ. And he deserves nothing but death. And that's what he got. And that's
what he is. He's a dead man. And so the opposites
of these two individuals who are in fact married and make
one flesh. Abigail and Nabal are a married
couple. They are together one flesh. What a picture of our experience
in our flesh. David heard verse four in the
wilderness that Nabal did shear his sheep. And David sent out
10 young men and David said unto the young men, get you up to
Carmel and go to Nabal and greet him in my name. Go to him peacefully. And that's what the Lord does
with the gospel to all men. The gospel, we're to plead with
all men everywhere that they would repent. And we plead with
men on the part of God's mercy and grace that they would believe
the gospel. David's not coming to Nabal with
threatenings or with demands. He's coming to him in a spirit
of peace, pleading with him to receive him. Thus saying to him that liveth
in prosperity, peace be both to thee, and peace be to thine
house, and peace be unto all that thou hast. And now I have
heard that thou hast shearers. Now thy shepherds which were
with us, we hurt them not, neither was there ought missing unto
them all the while that they were in Carmel. Nabal's shepherds
keeping the sheep in Carmel. David and his 600 warriors are
camping out in the same area that Nabal's shepherds were.
And David reminds him that we didn't do your shepherds any
harm. We protected them. We didn't take anything from
them. There was nothing missing while we were there. And now
we're in need of something from you. Now here's a man, another lesson
here, another sweet gospel lesson here. Here's a man who had been
anointed king. The scripture says that God has
made us to be kings and priests. And there was a day, there was
going to come a day when he would enjoy the reign of king over
Israel. But right now he wasn't there.
Right now he was a stranger. Right now he was being pursued
and persecuted. And here he was a king and having
to beg for provisions to take care of his daily needs. Isn't
that where we are? One day, one day, we're going
to be sitting at His throne as princes and princes before God
and enjoying the full blessing of everything that the Lord has.
But right now, we're pilgrims. We're strangers in a foreign
land. We're being pursued. and we find
ourselves in need of daily provisions, asking the Lord to provide for
us. Ask thy young men, and they will
show thee, verse eight, wherefore, let the young men find favor
in thine eyes, for we come in a good day. Give, I pray thee,
whatsoever cometh to thy hand unto thy servants and to thy
son David. So he's not demanding anything.
David's got 600 warriors. David is king of Israel. He just
hadn't taken the throne yet. And so he's asking for his mercy. And when David's young men came,
they spake to Nabal according to all those words in the name
of David and ceased. They didn't add, they told, they
said to Nabal exactly what David said to say. They didn't add
anything to it and they didn't take anything away from it. Isn't
that what we're to do? Here the king has sent us again
out into the world to his enemies. And he's given us a message.
And he's told us don't add anything to it. Don't take anything away
from it. Speak the truth and then just
be quiet. And the Lord will take care of
the results. No, we're not to. These men didn't argue with Nabal. They didn't make threatenings
to him. They just told him exactly what David said to say. And then
they, I love the way God's word's written, they ceased. They just
quit talking. And Nabal answered David's servants
and said, who is David? And who is the son of Jesse?
There are many servants nowadays that break away every man from
his master. Now there's two things in that
verse that tells us that Nabal knew exactly who David was. First
of all, he knew that he was the son of Jesse. It was known all
throughout Israel who David was. David was anointed king. Abigail
knew who he was. And the other point it is that
he knew that Saul was pursuing him. Every servant, there's many servants
in Israel that are at odds with their masters right now. Why
should I be concerned about any of that? Who is this David? Who is the son of God? Who is
this one who seems so much on the run, so insignificant, so
unimportant? This is the attitude that the
world has toward the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the attitude the
world has. The Christ who is the one that
we love, the one that we believe in, the one that we're preaching,
The one who's revealed himself to us, he's hated by the world. And this is their attitude toward
him. Shall I then take my bread and my water and my flesh that
I have killed for my shearers and give it unto men whom I know
not whence they be? Am I going to take my possessions? They weren't His at all, were
they? And yours aren't yours, and mine aren't mine. Everything
we have belongs to God. Oh, labor not for the meat that
perisheth, but that meat, that meat that will lead you to everlasting
life, which the Son of Man shall give you. That's the meat. A man's life does not consist
of the possessions of his things. That's the world's philosophy.
And that was Nabal's philosophy. And how much we need to be reminded
of that, don't we? That we don't get caught up in
this way of the world's thinking, that our value and our worth
and it's our possessions. What did that rich man say? I'm
increased in goods, and what am I going to do? I'm going to
pull down my barns, and I'll build bigger barns. And I'll
say to my soul, eat, drink, and be merry. Take your ease. And what does the Lord say to
that man? Thou nabal, thou fool, for this night thy soul shall
be required of thee. Here's, Nabal's just a representative
of the whole philosophy of this world. This is mine. I'm not
gonna share it with anybody. And I have no interest in David. So, verse 12, David's young men
turned their way and went again and came and told him all those
sayings. They just told David everything
that Nabal said. And David said unto his men,
gird ye on every man his sword. And they girded on every man
his sword. And David also girded on his sword. And there went
up after David about 400 men, and 200 abode by the stuff. Don't you like the way God calls
their provisions? Just stuff. 200 of the men had
to stay behind to protect the stuff. Only 400 of them went
to battle. But one of the young men told
Abigail, Nabal's wife, saying, behold, David sent messengers
out of the wilderness to salute our master, and he railed on
them. And the men were very good unto
us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we anything, as long as
we were conversant with them when we were in the field. They
were a wall unto us, both by night and day, all the while
they were with us while we were keeping the sheep. Now therefore
know and consider what that will do, for evil is determined against
our master and against all his household, for he is such a son
of Belial that a man cannot speak to him." You ever known anybody
like that? You ever been like that before?
Where your wife, your husband, your children, your friends,
your co-workers couldn't speak to you? Oh Lord, don't let us
have that kind of spirit. Then Abigail made haste and took
200 loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed,
and five measure of parched corn, and 100 clusters of raisins,
and 200 cakes of figs, and laid them on Asses. And she said to
her servants, go on before me. Behold, I come after you. But
she told not her husband Nabal. This was her. She's gonna go
to David now and plead with David for his mercy. Oh Lord, give
us the spirit of Abigail. For the spirit of Nabal is of
this world and the spirit of Nabal is of my flesh. And I'm
in need of being reconciled with David. lest I meet the fury of
His wrath. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry." And it was so, as she rode on
the ass, that she came down by the covert of the hill, and behold,
David and his men came down against her, and she met them. Now David
had said, Surely in vain have I kept all that this fellow hath
in the wilderness, so that nothing was missing of all that pertaineth
unto him, and he hath requited me evil for good. And one of
the lessons to be learned in this story is though David represents
Christ, and all the things we've said about Abigail and Nabal,
and Abigail coming to Christ, and Nabal's churlish attitude
and spirit, David's about to do something wrong as a man. He's about to avenge himself. Was it wrong what Nabal did to
David? Yes. Did it justify David killing
Nabal and all of his servants and wiping him out? No. No. David was reacting in anger and
he was going to be restrained. And he rejoices. Look at verse
32 of this chapter. And David said to Abigail, blessed
be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me,
and blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which has kept
me this day from coming to shed blood and from avenging myself
with my own hand. You know why you don't send more
than you do? Because in our God's good providence,
he doesn't give you an opportunity. Restraining, restraining grace,
kept by the power of God unto salvation, which shall be revealed
in that last day. The only reason we don't send
more than we do is because, oftentimes, because we lack opportunity. We lack opportunity. And that's a good thing. that
the Lord would cause us to not have the opportunities. Nabal
had great possessions, and with great possessions comes great
temptations. Did you see this woman that won
the Powerball lottery on what was $150 million or something
like that? I forgot what it was. I listened to her interview,
and she said, this is for my children, that they don't have
to work as hard as I had to work and live the life that I had
to live, and they're going to have a better life. And I thought,
I'd like to see them 20 years from now, 10 years from now, see if they have a better life. With great wealth comes great
responsibility, but also comes great temptations, doesn't it?
If we had the things that we sometimes dream for, you see,
God, not many of you are noble. Not many of you. Why? God keeps us. And what we would
do if we had the freedom, if we had the resources, And here the Lord is restraining
David. With his loving providence, he's
keeping David from sinning. And that's the one thing that
he does for us. The reason we don't sin most
of the time is just simply because God has restrained our opportunities. Verse 22, so and more also do
God unto the enemies of David if I leave of all that pertain
to him by the morning light, any that pisseth against the
wall. Won't kill every man in the camp. And when Abigail saw David, she
hasted and lighted off the ass and fell before David on her
face and bowed herself to the ground and fell at his feet and
said, unto me, my Lord, unto me, let this iniquity be. And
let thy handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine ear. That's the
word audience there. And hear the words of thy handmaid. Oh Lord, have mercy upon. She's accepting responsibility
for her husband. That's why I see the two natures
here. Know what we do? We come before the Lord. The only reason we're going to
come before the Lord is if God gives us a new spirit. He gives
us a new heart. He gives us a new nature. That's
the only nature. The old man won't come by himself. But when
the new man comes, he points to the old man. He says, I take
responsibility for him. We don't say, well, that's just
another person. I beg your forgiveness for him. Let not, my Lord, I pray thee,
regard this man of Belial, even Nabal, for as his name is, so
is he. Nabal is his name, and folly
is with him. But I, thine handmaid, saw not
the young men of my Lord, whom thou didst send. Abigail's saying, I didn't hear
the message. If I had heard the message, I
would have been here sooner. I would have answered the men
for Nabal. But I wasn't there, and I didn't
hear the message. And now that I've heard it, she
makes haste. As soon as you hear the gospel,
there's no place in the scriptures where God calls us to wait. No place. Every time the Lord
speaks, His word is to be hearkened to right then. The Lord's called
us to believe, we believe. If he's called us to repent,
we'll repent. It's not something that, this
is an urgent matter. If I had been there when the
servant spoke, I would have already been here. Or I would have given
them a different answer. Now, therefore, my Lord, as the
Lord liveth, verse 26, and as thy soul liveth, seeing the Lord
hath withholding thee from coming to shed blood and from avenging
thy self. Oh, don't avenge yourself. James chapter 1, the Lord said,
of his own will begat he us with the word of truth. Wherefore,
in light of the fact that God has saved you, wherefore, beloved
brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow
to wrath, for the wrath of man does not work the righteousness
of God. Lord, restrain my, my navel. Restrain the foolishness of my
flesh. Put a guard over my mouth. Don't
let me avenge myself. Don't let me be so quick to anger
and so quick to speak. It doesn't, it doesn't work the
righteousness of God. It just brings trouble, doesn't
it? A wrathful man stirreth up wrath. That's what the scripture
says. A wrathful man stirreth up strife,
but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife. A soft answer
turneth away wrath. Lord, give me that. Give me the
spirit of Abigail. to come before you and send an Abigail to me. God's word would be effectual
right now to us, to say to us, Lord, don't let me avenge myself. I don't wanna be... God will
take care of you. God's gonna take care of Napal,
isn't he? And Abigail saying, The Lord
has withholded thee, verse 26, from coming to shed blood and
from avenging thyself with thine own hand. Now let thine enemies
and they that speak evil to my Lord be as Nabal. 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. Notice Abigail sent the blessing
in front of her. And that provided the way for
her to be able to come to David, didn't it? You know, the same
thing's true for us. Our forerunner, the Lord Jesus
Christ, has to go before us and to present himself to God in
order for us to have acceptance before God. Don't try to go to God apart
from the Lord Jesus Christ making the way. You won't be accepted. Verse 28, and I pray thee, forgive
the trespass of thine handmaid. She's accepting responsibility
for Nabal, her husband. For the Lord will certainly make
my Lord a sure house. Oh, there's so much gospel in
these next two verses. She's accepting responsibility. She's begging for mercy. She
sends before her the gift that softens David's heart and provides
her an opportunity to be heard. And now she's saying to David,
I know that one day God's going to put you on the throne. And not only that, but what does
she say? I know that the Lord will make
my Lord a sure house. Never will they be on the throne
of Israel anyone other than the seat of David. Do you believe
that? God, Abigail is saying to David,
I know that when Samuel came and anointed you, that that was
of God and that nothing can change that. That you're gonna take
the throne and your descendants are going to reign on the throne
of Israel right down to the Messiah. And there's no question in my
mind about it. Because why is she so sure of
that promise? And here's what she says, because
my Lord fighteth the battles of the Lord, and evil hath not
been found in thy days, in all thy days. Two reasons I know
why God's gonna bless you, and why God's gonna put you on the
throne. Number one, because God blessed you in defeating the
Philistines. And the one battle that's most
memorable is the one where he killed Goliath. And David said,
Goliath was the one who made the proposition. He said, let's
just send one man against one man and whoever wins will win
for the whole army so that we don't all have to die. And that's
exactly what happened. And David killed Goliath and
got the victory for all Israel. What a picture of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's exactly what He did when
He hung on Calvary's cross all by Himself. He got the victory
for Israel. God blessed Him. And we know
that He's seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high because
God raised Him from the dead. God gave Him the victory. Why? Because God has sent His Spirit.
And He's convicted us of our sin, just like Abigail's convicted
of her sin. Because we believe not on Him.
Of righteousness, because He's gone to the Father. And of judgment,
because the Prince of this world is judged. That's what Abigail's
saying. I know that you got the victory
in battle. And I know that you're going
to reign on the throne of Israel. And I also know that there's
no evil in you. Isn't that what we know? That
in Him, there's no spirit of Nabal in Him. He wasn't born
after the flesh like we were. He was conceived of the Holy
Spirit. We looked at the Holy Spirit
last Sunday. How necessary the Holy Spirit is for our regeneration,
for our keeping, and it was necessary for His conception. He didn't
come with a seed of Adam. He came in perfect holiness,
and that's what made him a perfect sacrifice, and that's what makes
him a perfect Savior. And what Abigail is saying to
David is what we say when our Abigail, the one who is the praise
of their father, comes before Christ. I'm your handmaid, forgive
me. I accept responsibility. I know that God will give to
you a sure house. The sure mercies of David are
settled for sure. He is the surety of the covenant. And there's no question that
it can't, that it's not gonna be fulfilled. Hey, we're just,
we're just sure. We're sure. Are you sure? Verse 29, yet a man is risen
to pursue thee, she's talking about Saul, and to seek thy soul,
but the soul of my Lord shall be bound in the bundle of life
with the Lord thy God and the souls of thine enemies and they
shall be slung out as out of the middle of a sling. What's Abigail saying? Your soul
is bound up in the bundle of life with God's soul. And you're
not gonna die any more than God can die. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
fullness of the Godhead bodily. And you are complete in Him. His union with God and our union
with Him is the bounding up of the bundle of life. There's our
hope. That's what Abigail's saying.
This can't turn out any other way. And it shall come to pass when
the Lord shall have done to my Lord according to all the good
that he has spoken concerning thee, and shall appoint thee
ruler over Israel. She's convinced that all the
promises of God are yay and amen in Christ. She's convinced that
everything... It didn't look like that now.
I mean, here's David out on the backside of the wilderness with
his army, having to beg a farmer for some food in order to feed
his men. And Saul's pursuing him with
his army. And Saul's reigning on the throne.
It didn't look good for David. But Abigail knew that the promises
of God could not be changed. She knew they would be fulfilled.
This is faith, isn't it? This is where our hope is. You
look at where we are, you look at us, you look at the gospel,
and you think, you know, things don't look so good. You know,
the whole world is contrary to the gospel. The spirit of Abigail says, I
know that all the promises of God will be fulfilled. And I'm
gonna wait for that day. And when that happens, when that
happens, she says, verse 31, that this shall be no grief unto
thee nor offensive heart unto my Lord, either that thou has
shed blood causeless or that my Lord hath avenged himself. Oh, isn't that the way it is?
When we avenge ourselves, We just bring more trouble on ourselves,
don't we? That's what she's saying. If
you avenge yourself, you're just gonna make things worse. It's
just, you're pouring gasoline on a fire. It doesn't solve anything. But when the Lord shall have
dealt with my Lord, then remember thine handmaid. Well, it reminds me of the thief
on the cross, doesn't it? Lord, remember me when you come
into your kingdom. That's what she's saying. I know
that you're going to be king. I know that God's going to fulfill
his promises. I know that you're bound up in
the bundle of life with God. And I'm just sure of it. And
when that happens, would you remember me? Would you have mercy
upon me? And David said to Abigail, Blessed
be the Lord. This is of God. God sent you
to restrain me. God sent you to speak these words.
And blessed be your advice. You brought good counsel, good
words. These are words from God, I know
they are. And blessed be you. Oh, and that's
the order, isn't it? God gets the blessing first,
his decrees and promises, and then we bless God's people for
bringing us this word. You have kept me this day from
coming to shed blood and from avenging myself with mine own
hand. For in very deed, as the Lord
God of Israel liveth, which hath kept me back from hurting thee. Now see, if David had gone in
and done what he did, what was gonna happen to Abigail? Chances are, she had been injured
in the battle, maybe killed. You know, we, We don't try to tear out the
tares because in doing so, we'll damage the wheat. We just have to treat all men
with kindness and hopes that the Lord's gonna bring out His
people. Abigail would have been damaged. She would have been injured in
that battle. And when the spirit of Nabal
seeks to avenge itself, people are hurt. Believers are hurt. Church can be hurt. And that's
why the Lord said, Reconcile with your brother immediately.
If the spirit of nabal has caused you to act in a way that's contrary
to what you know, you just beg for God's forgiveness. Accept
full responsibility and do it quickly. Don't let it fester. So David received of her hand
that which she had brought him, and said unto her, Go up in peace
to thine house. See, I have hearkened to thy
voice, and have accepted thy person. Now, if the sweet gospel
lessons of this story have found any place in your heart, then
I hope that this is what you're hearing from the Lord. Go up
to thine house in peace. Thy words have been heard, and
I have accepted thy person. Let's pray. Merciful Heavenly Father, we
ask that you would speak those words to our hearts by your Spirit. Comfort us in Christ. Cause us to remember the spirit of Abigail. And Lord, forgive us for that
churlish man that lives in each of us. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. 168 and the hardback tenor. Let's
stand together. Number 168. Lord, I hear of showers of blessing,
Thou art scattering, full and free. Showers the thirsty land
refreshing, Let some drops now fall on me. Even me, even me,
let Thy blessing fall on me. Pass me not, O tender Savior,
let me love and cling to Thee. I am longing for thy favor. Whilst thou art calling, O call
me, even me. Even me, let Thy blessing fall
on me. Pass me not, O mighty Spirit,
Thou canst make the blind to see. Witnesser of Jesus' merit,
speak the word of power to me. Even me, even me, let Thy blessing
fall on me. Love of God, so pure and changeless. Blood of Christ, so rich and
free. Grace of God, so strong and boundless. Magnify them all in me. Even me, even me. Let Thy blessing fall on me. Pass me not, thy lost one bringing,
bind my heart, O Lord, to thee. While the streams of life are
springing, blessing others, O bless me. Even me, even me, let Thy
blessings fall on me. Please. Thank you very much. What she says now.