I just wanted to continue in
1 Samuel chapter 25. Last week we just looked at a
bit of an overview of it and we looked at Abigail as a beautiful
picture of a sinner, an elect sinner being drawn to the Lord
Jesus. And as we saw last week, she
was wedded to a man named Nabal, whose name means folly or fool. And we are, as children of Adam,
wedded. We are wedded to the flesh. We
are wedded to the law as a covenant of works. And if we, as we saw
in Proverbs last week, if we actually trust our own wisdom,
we are wedded to a fool." So she was bound and she was wedded.
And it was the impending doom that caused her to seek David. And we saw in those verses in
chapter 25, verse 20, she sent her servants on ahead to go on
before me, I'll come after you. And she wrote on her ass, verse
20, that she came down. And behold, David and his men
came down, and she met them. Salvation is a coming down of
man, but wonderfully and remarkably it's a coming down of God. There
must be a meeting, mustn't there? There must be a meeting between
a sinner and the Lord Jesus. Salvation is knowing Him, There
cannot be a knowing of Him without a meeting with Him. In verse
23, she fell on her face, fell before David on her face and
she bowed herself to the ground. Verse 24, she fell at his feet
and she pleaded She pleaded as a sinner, she acknowledged that
this iniquity, this iniquity of her husband was her iniquity. She pleads as a sinner, nothing
in my hand I bring, nothing at all. And she acknowledges who
he is, she acknowledges his lordship, she calls herself thine handmaid,
again and again she calls herself thine handmaid and she asks to
speak to him and she pleads the situation that she's in and she
looks to David, but she looks beyond David. She looks to David's
Lord in verse 26. Now therefore, my Lord, as the
Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, seeing the Lord hath
withholden thee from coming to shed blood and from avenging
thyself with thine own hand, now let thine enemies and they
that seek thee be to my Lord as an able. She looked to the
Lord in verse 28 again, isn't it? She says these remarkable
words, doesn't she? She says, Forgive the trespass
of thine handmaid, for the Lord will certainly make my Lord a
sure house, because my Lord fighteth the banners of the Lord, and
evil has not been found all these days. Yet a man is risen to pursue
thee and to seek thy soul, And then she has this wonderful description
of David and every child of God. But the soul of my Lord shall
be bound in a bundle, in the bundle of life, with thee Lord
thy God. And that bundle is as a treasured
possession, wrapped up tightly and securely. And the souls of
thine enemy then shall he sling out as in the middle of a sling. And she acknowledges the Lord's
sovereignty and His purpose. When 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 have appointed
thee ruler over Israel. She acknowledges the sovereign
purposes of God. She acknowledges the eternal
covenant of God. She acknowledges God's sovereign
covenantal purposes. What a remarkable picture of
a saved sinner. And she begs to be remembered. She pleads to be remembered and
she finds herself accepted in her person. She's told to go
up in peace to thine house. Her voice has been heard, and
David says, I have accepted thy person. So a marriage, we find
at the end of this chapter, a marriage. Her marriage to Nabal is dissolved
by the death of Nabal. And her marriage to David comes
about because of a death, because of a change in covenantal circumstances. Turn your Bibles to Romans chapter
7 for a minute and we'll see what Romans 7 says about this
bondage that we were in. He says at the beginning of chapter
7, No ye not brethren, for I speak to them that know the law. how
that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives. And
then he gives this illustration. For the woman which has a husband
is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth. But if
the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
So then, if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another
man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband be dead, she
is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though
she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, you also
are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that you
should be married to another. even to him who is raised from
the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. The argument of Romans like the
argument of Galatians is to go back to the law, is to be in
an adulterous relationship. It's a shocking thing and it
is so clear in the scriptures and yet so little understood
by men. And she's married. She's married
to another. She's married, she's separated
and released from that bondage and now she's married to another.
That was something of the picture that we saw last week. But this
week I'd like to spend a little bit of time just looking with
you at the life of David. We know that David was brought
to this remarkable place in Israel, not because of his activities,
not because of his brawn, not because of his brain, but he
was brought to this position by the supernatural power of
the Holy Spirit. But again and again in these
chapters and throughout the life of David, we see a man of God,
an anointed man of God, tested, allowed to be tested, allowed
to be seen as human. And in this particular story,
if you read around it, you'll see that David has been pursued
by Samuel, hunted like a wild animal on either side of this
chapter, Saul hunts him. And David was a man who suffered
much. He had great enemies. Here he
was, just this band of small men hiding in the rocks and the
caves, Saul with a great army of thousands. David had great
enemies. He also found himself in all
of that nation Israel, with all of its history, with God's covenanted
purposes, he found himself who had been a friend of Israel,
rejected by most of Israel. If you turn back to 1 Samuel
22 verse 2 it is, the people that came to him,
just listen to those who were with him. And everyone that was
in distress, and everyone that was in debt, and everyone that
was discontented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became captain
over them. And there were with him about
four hundred men, four hundred men, a picture of course of the
church as we might see in a couple of weeks time, in debt, discontented. to join to David. But that's
out of a great nation where David had been a great warrior, a great
leader, a great general, the son-in-law of the king. And David had acted with great
honour, hasn't he? He'd acted honourably to Saul,
he'd acted honourably to Israel, he'd acted honourably to Nabal. He took nothing but he defended
them. He was owed in the normal course
of events. He was owed because of his protection
of them. He was owed because of just common
sense would say, this man who has defended my flocks and defended
my shepherds and defended my family, defended my property
and defended me. is owed something, and David
sends these young men to him, and they come with humility,
don't they? David says in verse 8, he says,
let the young man find favour in your eyes, because we come
in a good day, a day of feasting. And he doesn't ask for much,
he says, whatever comes into your hands, give to your servants. and to your son David." He acknowledged
his place. Remarkable. And David was mocked. He was mocked and treated with
gross injustice. And it was especially so because
we see that these men, these young men that went to Nabal,
had shown him great loyalty. They had gathered to David and
been loyal to David. The question that lies before
us in these things is how often are God's children called to
bear with treatment which is positively unjust. and uncalled
for given the circumstances. And the question that's raised
in these verses is why does God commit this? David, of course,
was bent on evil in this situation. It was a wicked thing for him
to do, having trusted God But so often we find ourselves and
we find the Lord's people throughout the Scriptures in a situation
like David is here. And so often we find the Lord's
people bearing the weight of these things and then struggling
under it. and like David, falling at times. It's a promise from God, isn't
it? All that will live a godly life in Christ Jesus shall suffer
persecution. And so often we want to say,
why me? And why my friends? And David
was probably enraged here in a more unreasonable fashion than
normal because it was his young men who were loyal to him and
had been loyal to Nabal, had been slighted and treated with
contempt. Why? Why all this suffering? Why these circumstances that
we encounter so often where, like David, our proud spirit
is roused and our hearts are exposed by the trials and what
is seen is not pretty. Why does God do it? Why me? Why my friends suffering this
way? We know the answers and we can
know them intellectually, but we pray that the Lord will teach
us these things experientially and in our hearts, that we will
be caused to be wise in our response. Obviously the evil that's around
us provide us opportunities to live out what we profess, to
turn events where we are treated so badly into opportunities to
prayer and opportunities to trust the Lord. These trials come upon
us and show our weakness, as David's weakness is exposed here. again to show us that salvation
is by grace. It comes to the undeserving,
God's sovereign grace. And God's sovereign grace remains
on the undeserving. And as we know from 1 Corinthians
1 verse 31, that no flesh should glory in His presence. And like David, these trials
come upon us that we might be caused to look up, to look to
God, to look beyond our circumstances. You see, David had forgotten
his calling and he had, in this moment of rashness, forgotten
his covenant promises. It's so often hard isn't it for
us to speak of David and so often we see him exposed in the scriptures
and we go to passages like the one with Bathsheba. and we look
at David's sin, we must remember that David was a great man. Oh dear, oh dear. I wouldn't
wish to have David sin, but I would love to have just one tiny grain
of this man's courage and this man's love for God. He was a
great man. He was a great man by the declaration
of God. He was a man after God's own
heart. And he was a great man by man's
estimation. The estimation of any man in
all of history would see David as a great man. He had the most
remarkable range of gifts, didn't he? An amazing general and leader
of men, but also a man with a remarkable heart. He was called at the end
of his life, the sweet psalmist of Israel. So much of the Psalms
are written by him. So why? What was the cause of David falling
into this lapse? And it's a lapse that not only
David has fallen into, but all of us have fallen into and we'll
fall into it again. You see, David's eyes were for
a time on man and not on God. You see, when we take our eyes
off the Lord and look to the secondary causes, look to the
things of this earth and not to the primary causes of things,
we'll be like David. We'll gird on our sword and we'll
rush to a place which is not good for us. We look to secondary
causes by the eyes of our flesh, but the eyes of faith look to
God." What a remarkable story David had of faith. Just let
me read Psalm 57, which probably deals with the events in the
previous chapter. read these words to you of David,
when he fled from Saul in the cave, and he says, Be merciful
unto me, O God, be merciful unto me, for my soul trusteth in thee. Yea, in the shadow of thy wings
will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpassed. I will cry unto God most high,
unto the God that performeth all things for me. He shall send
from heaven and save me from the reproach of him that would
swallow me up, sealer. God shall send forth his mercy
and his truth. My soul is among lions. I lie even among them that are
set on fire, even the sons of men whose teeth are spears and
arrows and their tongue a sharp sword. Nabal's tongue was like
a sharp sword to him. Saul's tongue had been like a
sharp sword. Then he says in verse 5, Be thou
exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let thy glory be above all the
earth. They have prepared a net for
my steps. My soul is bowed down. They have
digged a pit before me. into the midst whereof they are
fallen themselves. My heart is fixed, O God, my
heart is fixed. I will sing and give praise.
Awake up, my glory, awake, sultry in heart. I myself will awake
early. I will praise Thee, O Lord, among
the people. I will sing unto thee among the
nations, for thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth
unto the clouds. Be thou exalted, O God, above
the heavens. Let thy glory be above all the
earth." David had been protected in all of this journey. He'd
been protected even though Saul was a vicious and unrelenting
enemy, and he had still been secured, and he had been protected,
and his men had been protected. But David, in this moment of
rash anger, vowed to God that he would pursue and kill all
of these people. He made a silly vow. He had entered into a moment
of rashness. I don't know about you, but so
often I find myself in moments of rashness and I look back and
I am thankful for the rebuking hand of God. Job at the beginning
of his trials said, shall we not receive good at the hands
of the Lord? Shall we not receive good at
the hands of the Lord and not receive evil? All sin, all sin that we see
should have one effect on us, shouldn't it? We should, like
Abigail, say that this is my sin, it was mine in Adam, it's
in my flesh. No good thing dwells in me. I cannot look at a sin in this
world and say, I am above that and I am beyond that and I am
not capable of it. It is by the grace of God that
we are what we are. It is by the grace of God that
he brings us to be patient and to wait. What a wonderful thing if God
could cause us to accept as from the hand of God whatever enters
our lives. Like our Lord in that great prayer
in the garden, your will be done. What an amazing thing it would
be if God would work in our hearts that we would just walk patiently and not be overcome from doing what is so clearly
just the Lord's will, no matter what the opposition. is seeing his hand in everything,
in the circumstances, whatever the circumstances is. We know
what Romans 8.28 says, that God is speaking, God is not inactive,
God is acting. Romans 8.28 says God is working
all things. So whatever the circumstance
I'm in, God is working. I love what Samuel says as a
little boy, he says, Speak, for thy servant heareth. Speak to
me God, don't let me go my own way. Our peace is secure when we rest
in him. when we find ourselves, as Abigail
does in these remarkable words, to be reminded of our place,
of whose we are and in whose hands we are. You see what providential
dealings the Lord brings here. One of these young men is raised
up, one of these young men who heard David's young men being
rebuked, and what courage He showed, as he spoke, in those
verses from 14 down to 17. There he was, a young man in
Nabal's company, a young man speaking to Nabal's wife, a young
man being honest about what happened and being honest about Nabal
and the wickedness of him. He flew upon them. He was so
mean to them. He spoke to Abigail. And Abigail's response, as we've
seen, she accepted the warning, she accepted the rebukes of her
husband, and she acted in haste and she acted promptly, and she
wasn't being disloyal to her husband. She was trying to protect
him. David was bent on wickedness. God sends a young man to a young
woman to go to meet with David. God sent someone and crossed
his path. God sends someone, if we're going
to be restrained from evil, God will send someone to stop us
in our tracks. The question is before us in
these matters, isn't it, is the real test in so many ways of
where our hearts are at and where our treasure is at, is how we
respond How do we respond when our sin is exposed? How do we
respond when we are rebuked by the Word of God? How do we respond when we are
rebuked by someone who is less than us? The reality is, in our
Adam flesh, everyone is less than us. How do we respond when
God's word comes? We long for people to come and
take the things of the Lord with the seriousness that Abigail
did, but we find so often, don't we? This condemnation, as the
Lord Jesus said in John chapter 3 verse 19, this is the condemnation,
that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather
than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone
that does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest
his deeds should be reproved. But he that does truth, verse
21, comes to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest,
that they are wrought. That word wrought is to work
out, it's the word we have for wrought iron, it's something
that's worked out in God. the circumstances of our lives
are in the hands of a sovereign God. Do we, in the face of challenge,
do we run to God and say, what is God saying to me? Or do we
run like those people described by the Lord Jesus, who love the
darkness rather than light? How often We meet with people
and we say to them, this is the Gospel, this is who the Lord
Jesus is and this is how He saves sinners. And it's a delightful
message of light, it's a delightful message of grace. I heard a statement
from Henry Mohan in a sermon just the other day, and Henry
said that he's, and he had to be careful saying it, he said,
I wouldn't ever be shocked by sins that could happen in the
members of my church, but I am really shocked by someone leaving
the gospel of grace. hearing about it and knowing
its beauty and leaving it. Abigail is remarkable as a messenger. In verse 21, she didn't come
and rebuke David. Verse 21 and following. She didn't,
she left it for his conscience. She just laid out the case before
him, the circumstances of Nabal. Nabal was acting out what Nabal
is. Nabal is his name and folly is
with him. And she acknowledged before David
in a sense had been restrained that this was God's hand. in
verse 26. As the Lord lives and as thy
soul liveth, seeing the Lord hath withholden thee from coming
to shed blood, and avenging thyself in thine own hands, the very
thing which he had been restrained from doing with Saul on all of
thy circumstances, twice he had the opportunity in his hands
to dispatch Saul and kill him. but he respected the anointing
of God, and he waited on God. And yet in this circumstance,
he was prepared to act as judge and jury and executioner. She comes to him and says that
God will deal with Nabil. God will deal with him. She shields
her husband. And she draws David to see the
future. And it's only when we see the
future that we can see the present in a clear light. See, unless
we know the future, unless we know the covenant purposes of
God, if we just look to the present, all we'll see is through the
eyes of flesh. Our faith. Faith looks beyond. Faith looks beyond what we see. We walk by faith and not by sight. David, she acknowledges, was
fighting the Lord's battle. He doesn't need to defend himself
against the insults of man. And she remembered when David
had to leave Jerusalem after Absalom had snatched the kingdom
from him. He walks out of Jerusalem, Shimei
walks along and throws rocks at him and curses David and curses
David. And David had learnt a lesson
of patience. He waited. And she pleaded His
coming glory, His coming glory to regulate his present actions. Isn't it a remarkable thing what
lies ahead of the children of God? What a remarkable thing
that we have. What a remarkable inheritance
we have. What a remarkable heritage we
have right now. She pleads His coming glory to
modify and to regulate His present activities. And she just asks
to be remembered. What a remarkable thing, David's
response to her. Admonition, says Psalm 141 verse
5, is good. Let the righteous smite me, and
it shall be a kindness. Let him reprove me, and it shall
be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head. As Proverbs
27 verse 6 says, Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the
kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Wonderful picture of the heart
of David, the softened heart of David as he responded. His response is remarkable, isn't
it? In verse 32, he blesses God. He thanks God. He praises God
for sending her to him to turn him from a course which would
have been damaging. He was Israel's king. But what
was the king doing as the enemy of a people? He could say to
Saul in the next chapter, 26 verse 18, he said, what evil
have I done? Or what evil is in my hand? He could say that now because
of God's providential sending of Abigail to stop him from this
course. What a remarkable thing it is,
the restraining hand of God. And in verse 33, he thanks Abigail. He says, Blessed be the Lord
God which sent thee to me this day. We have in every providence,
every providence that causes us to be turned, as Proverbs
3 verse 6 says, Acknowledge Him in all thy ways, and He will
direct thy paths. Whatever providential circumstances
come our way, trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean
not on thy own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him,
and He shall, a promise from God, direct thy paths. What a remarkable thing to be
brought back to a place of waiting upon God. He thanked Abigail
for standing between him and the sin that he was about to
commit. And he accepted her offering and sent her away in peace. You see, wise men accept advice. If you go home and just read
those first few chapters of Proverbs, you'll see just again and again,
to know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding,
to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice and judgment.
And it goes on and on. And then in those verses from
22 and following, You find those who will not be turned. She is the picture of an elect
lady. And there is a sequel here, isn't
it? It's a sad, sad sequel. We have Nabal. She comes back
to him and she just relays the circumstances of what happened.
She doesn't have to rebuke Nabel. When the whiners got out of him,
she just told him what had happened. And what an awful, awful picture
of the reprobate. His heart died within him and
he became as a stone. His heart died within him for
10 days. He was a dead man who was living. It's a picture of the reprobate,
isn't it? They live, but they live as dead
men. Hearts that are dead, hearts
that are stoned. What a shocking thing. Both Nabal
and Saul are they that seek evil to my Lord, as Abigail said. Both of them were left and given
over. Saul was sorrowful. Again and
again Saul was sorrowful. And he was left at the end in
the hands of evil, an evil spirit. God is just. God is just in salvation and
God is just in damnation. God's justice and God's faithfulness
will be honored in the saving of his own and in the damnation
of those who are his enemies. Verse 39, when David heard that
Nabal was dead, he said, Blessed be the Lord. that has pleaded
the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal. You see, God
pleads the cause of his people and has kept his servant from
evil. And then these words, for the
Lord has returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head. Those horrifying words in John
chapter 8, and the Lord Jesus said to the Pharisees, who had
a wise man and a good man, come and bring the words of the gospel
to them. And they fell on hearts of stone. And he said of them that they
would die in their sins. It's a shocking, shocking picture
to think that they sinned have never been taken away, ever. What a remarkable thing salvation
by grace is. What a remarkable thing that
God takes out a stone, a stoning heart. That God takes out of
his people a dead heart. What a remarkable thing to be
given a heart of flesh that is soft, a heart of flesh that is
caused by the grace of God to look to the Lord Jesus and to
see the glorious hand of our Saviour in all the things of
our life, a covenant-making, covenant-keeping, grace-bestowing,
restraining hand upon His people. bringing them into a marriage
covenant. And let's finish by reading those
amazing words in verse 29 of chapter 25. There is a man risen
to pursue him. There are around us, surrounding
God's people, people who pursue us to seek thy soul. But, I love the Lord's buts in
the scriptures. But the soul of my Lord shall
be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God." Bound in the bundle of life. As the Lord Jesus says, because
I live, you also shall live. Put to death because of our sins,
raised because of our justification, righteous before God. Let's pray.