Abigail - The Wise Woman (1 Samuel 25:23-44)

[Music] [Music] [Music] turning the bibles to first samuel chapter 25 as you know we've been going through the book of samuel uh verse by verse passage by passage we're continuing looking at the lives of basically david and saul and jonathan and in this little section in fact in chapter 25 let me go back for a second this is we've titled this one abigail the wise woman because we're looking at david's interaction with this man his name is nabal and you remember david's on the run and we'll talk more about nabel in just a minute uh naval was a rich man but a foolish man and we see in this passage david is going to kill naval that's what he's doing he's got 400 of his men he's going he had lied to david he cheated david and so david is going to get him and so as we look at this david is seeking vengeance now we've already seen over and over that vengeance belongs to the lord up to this time david has done so good i mean when saul tried to kill him two or three times he did fine when he had the opportunity to kill saul he wouldn't do it he said vengeance belongs to the lord i'll just leave it that way but as we look at this david is about to to make a mistake david's about to do wrong he is going to kill naval and so we're going to meet this morning what we call the wise woman uh that's going her name is abigail she is the wife of nabal and we're going to see what happens so as we look at this passage we're going to see two things and this may surprise you a little bit we're going to see how to respond when we have wronged others now we've been seeing over and over that people have been wrong in david and david's allowed vengeance for the lord and all that what do we do if we do something wrong to somebody and then the second is how do we respond when we're wrong so it's sort of a dual aspect there that we're going to look at as we go through our passage this morning well you're driving on the highway and driving the speed limit and somebody flies past you and your first thought is i hope they get caught right isn't that what you think they're going so fast and you say you hope you get caught and in fact we think sometimes we want people to get what they deserve unless it's us and then we just want mercy and grace but we want people to get what they deserve and when people do wrong that's what we want but the truth is is we realize that when somebody does wrong uh you know our natural response is to want to get them back we've already seen from the scripture that vengeance belongs to the lord romans chapter 12 says never return evil with evil return evil with good and so we're seeing something this morning where this man named nabel did wrong to david and david instead of doing what he's been doing which is leaving vengeance to the lord he's going after this man to kill him and so uh what's going to happen david's going to do that how do we deal with that how do we deal with with when we have done somebody wrong and one of the great truths we realize from the bible as vengeance belongs to the lord david takes matters into his own hand and seeks to kill nabal and we're going to meet and we met last week this woman named abigail we call her the wise woman and we're going to see what she does she's the wife of nabal we've seen that in these last few chapters that saul is trying to kill david david is on the run saul is the king of israel but he's already been rejected by god david has already been anointed as the next king of israel but he's not the king yet david was anointed when he was maybe 15 years old he's not going to be the king until he's 30. so all this time saul is trying to get him and saul is looking for him to kill him and one of the things that i think is amazing and we talked about this several weeks ago is everybody can find david but saul saul wants to kill him and god has protected him jonathan found david david's parents found david the priest on david 600 men found david we're going to find that abigail finds david but saul can't find david that's because god is protecting david from saul and so we're going to see in this situation what is david going to do he's done right all the way up to here up to this time but now he's doing wrong he's going he's going to go kill this man named and i'll give you more information about what happened in just a second but we have to look at this and you say well david he's like a man after god's own heart and he's he's the great one and yet he's going to make a mistake he's going to do something really wrong he's planning to kill a man he's planning to get his own vengeance and sometimes in our lives as we do good for a while and then we mess up and sometimes we'd say i would never do that but just remember take heedless we think we stand we fall we're capable of any sin so here's david so let's think where we are david has 600 men there was a man by the name of nabel and he was so rich he had all these sheep all these goats he had everything and david came and made an agreement with the shepherds that we'll protect you we'll protect all these sheep of this man named abel and we'll take our 600 men and we'll surround everything and the animals won't get through and eat the sheep or the goats and anybody won't come steal we'll protect you and then when it comes time to shear the sheep we'll we'll take our share we'll come in and say thank you we protected you and you'll give us that that was sort of the deal well we saw that that was supposed to be the deal so when david sent his men to naval because they're shearing the sheep it's a big party time when david sent his men there naval treated them badly watch if you have your bibles at first samuel 25 verse 9 then david's young men came and they spoke to nabel according to all the words in david's name and they waited they basically said we've taken care of your sheep pay us that's basically what they're saying it says in verse 10 but and so david is coming so when naval answered david's servants and he said who is david and who is the son of jesse the many servants today are breaking away from their master shall i take my bread my water my meat i've slaughtered from my shears and give it to these men so he really makes fun of david when he david asked he basically ran him off he said who is david let me just tell you something everybody in israel knows who david is and they know his father is because that's what he said who is this son of jesse listen he's lying when he says i don't know who this david is he knows what's happening let me tell you another foolish thing that he did he didn't turn around and talk to his men and say why are these people coming and asking for food and they would have said to him they protected us all this time we made a deal with them we need to pay them but he wouldn't even do that he wouldn't listen to anybody he just ran him off he said get out of here i don't know who you are i don't care who you are and so they leave if you look down when they came back to david they came to david and said we went to that guy named nabel and we said we expect our get our stuff and he said get out of here he didn't even know who you are get out so david says everybody get their swords put them on david's going to put his sword on if you notice verse 13 david said to his men each of you gird on your sword so each man created on his sword david also greeted on his sword and about 400 men went up behind david while 200 stay with the baggage nobody's got 600 people so 400 are going to fight now here's his plan and you don't see it yet we'll see it in a few verses later his plan is to go to nabel's house nabel's place and kill every man there nabel has a lot of helpers a lot of servants a lot of people his plan is to go there and kill them all including naval so he says okay man we're going and we're going to wipe this guy out well what happened after they left after david is on the way one of the servants of naval came to nabel's wife her name is abigail and the bible says she's pretty and she's wise and she's intelligent it says nabal's a fool and he's not very wise and he's evil and so these people come to abigail and said we got a real problem and abigail says what's the problem says well these men came to your husband your worthless husband and uh he ran them off and i guarantee you they're coming back to kill us all we better do some every one of us are going to be dead so abigail decides what she's going to do and if you look at verse 18 it says then abigail hurried and she took 200 loaves of bread two jugs of wine five sheep already prepared five measures of roasted grain a 100 clusters of grapes and 200 cakes of figs and loaded them on the donkey so she's got it all loaded up then she said to her young men go on before me behold i'm coming after you but she did not tell her husband neighbor and she didn't tell him because she knew that if she were to tell him he'd stop her he's such a foolish man he wouldn't listen to her he wouldn't listen to anything that she said so she's saying the very best thing to do is just do this go on and get this done because if not every man will be killed so she takes off ready to go now you remember david 400 men are on the way to their house so to speak their camp sheba meanwhile is coming to meet david with the with the food so look what happened in verse 20. it came about as she was riding on her donkey and coming down by the hidden part of the mountain that behold david and his men were coming down toward her so she met them now uh when when we when we think about abigail as i said a while ago she's the wife of a neighbor she's described as wise and beautiful so they meet so david's coming down a hill with a bunch of men she's coming down and they're going to meet sort of in a little valley and you know she doesn't know what to expect she could think that david would look at her and kill her he might kill her and just keep going she's taken her life into her hands and so look what happens we now have we now get the information what david was planning on doing verse 21. now david had said surely in vain i guarded all that this man had is in the wilderness so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him and he has returned to me evil for good now remember the bible says never return evil with evil but return evil with what good now david's plan him and this he said this man returned my good with evil so now i'm going to return his evil with evil so david's going contrary to the scripture he is and that's his plan look at verse 22 may god do so to the enemies of david and more also if by morning i leave as much as one male of any who belongs to him he says i'm going to kill every man there now we stop and think and we say david david david david do you think this is the right thing to do they would say yeah because that guy mis he messed over me he owes me and he lied to me and he made fun of me and he's not going to get away with that but what we could say is david doesn't vengeance belong to the lord not to you and so we've seen david's thought and vengeance does belong to lord but david's about to do wrong well all of a sudden he looks up and there is this beautiful woman and all these donkeys and she's standing there greeting him well she's fixing to get off her donkey we'll see you in just a second so when that verse 23 when abigail saw david she hurried dismounted from her donkey fell on her face before david and bowed herself to the ground she got off and she showed great respect for david now let's look at it from abigail's side and this is what i want you to learn from she's coming as if she did wrong her husband did wrong they were supposed to pay david they went back on their word david's coming to kill him she's coming and she's representing her husband and she's going to say i did wrong and so as we look at this i want you to think about something what do we do what does abigail do she does three things i want you to see it she recognizes wrong was done to david she recognized that was wrong second she tries to correct the wrong and third she ask for forgiveness now when we do somebody wrong in every one of this room somewhere down the line as much as we might might not want to we may end up hurting somebody or doing something wrong and what do we need to do what what is that oh okay how did that move back to there i don't know anyway she did that so here's what happens what when we do wrong what do we do what should we do well we need to recognize we've done wrong we know to go to a person and say i blew it i mean i i lied to you or i did this to you i didn't mean to do this but i did it anyway the second thing is if we can correct it if possible sometimes you can't correct it sometimes you do things and there's not a way to correct it if possible we should correct it and the third thing we should seek forgiveness and we're going to see this is exactly what she does and we can learn from this because sometimes every one of us in this room we're going to mess up and we're going to need to go to somebody and say i did wrong and i'll correct it and will you forgive me so let's see what she does the first thing she does is she admits that she's wrong look at verse 24 she felt at his feet and said on me alone my lord be your blame and please let your may servant speak to you and listen to the words of your maid servant she admits that she's wrong she says put the blame on me she allows the blame to fall on her you know what she's doing she's saying i'm taking the place of my husband he's an idiot he's a fool that's what he is and we're going to see later on what she says and what everybody says he's an evil foolish man and she comes and says put the blame on me i'm gonna take his place he he did wrong but i'm doing wrong put the blame on me and abigail becomes the substitute now let me tell you something we've all sinned and come short of the glory of god and we all go god death and you know what we need we need to substitute and our substitute is jesus christ he took our place in first peter 3 18 christ died for our sins once for all the just for the unjust we all owed god death and jesus took our place and so what happens is bottom line is that we're supposed to be separated from god forever because we all sin then jesus said no no put the blame on me i will die in their place pay for their sin rise again conquer death and save them give them eternal life so she comes and she takes the blame and look at the next verse because it's pretty powerful verse she says please do not let my lord jesus now she's calling david lord do not let my lord pay attention to this worthless man nabel that's what she calls her husband a worthless man an able his name means fool and for she says for as his name is so is he now we wonder who in the world named him fool would you name your child hey fool let's let's name him for that's what he's named could be that that's what everybody called him because that's what he was fool his fool is his name and folly is with him i am your maidservant i did not see the young men of my lord whom you sent she says now look my husband is foolish and that's his name and the truth is i didn't see the man when you sent them in they went to my husband and he ran them off but i never saw him if i would have seen him what she's implying is if i would have seen him i would have handled this and we wouldn't be going through this right now so the first thing she does is admit there's wrong there's a second thing she's going to correct the wrong look what she says in verse 27. she says now go back go back to verse 26 says my lord lives as your soul lives since the lord has restrained you from shedding the blood and from avenging yourselves by your own hand and your enemies and seeking evil against my lord she said please stop don't kill don't do all this you've stopped it i'm trying to stop you now and then she says take the gift take the gift which your maidservant has brought to my lord be given to the young men you remember there's that donkeys and they've got all that food on there and basically that's what david was supposed to get paid and she's bringing it and she gives it to him and she corrects it she says basically here's what should have been the first time and then so she gives the the food for david and his men and then the third thing she does is she ask for forgiveness look at verse 28 please forgive the transgression of your maidservant forgive me forgive me she wants david to forgive her to let it go by the way forgiveness is key forgiveness is key and anything forgiveness means to let go it comes from the greek word this is hebrew here but in the new testament it talks about forgiveness it's a greek word which means to lift up and to take away and when we forgive somebody we remove whatever they did wrong and we let it go she's actually saying to david please let this go please let this get out of here one of the great truths that we have to understand and we've talked about it before is that forgiveness is vital on our part when somebody does us wrong we have to forgive whether they ask for forgiveness will they ever come back because if you don't forgive you will be bitter you'll be angry and as time goes by you'll be depressed angry and bitter the rest of your life so we're supposed to forgive whether anybody ever asks for forgiveness she is coming and asking for forgiveness and she says please forgive the transgressions of your maid servant so that's what she wants to do look what she's done when we do wrong we need to do the same thing we need to admit we did wrong we need to correct it and we need to seek forgiveness now i'm going to go quickly because she is going to say five things about david now i said to you earlier she is a wise person and look what she says and we'll go quickly through it i just want you to see it she's gonna make five statements about david the first one is that god fights for david that god will establish david's kingdom look at verse 28 again please forgive the transgressions of your sins of your hand of your maidservant for the lord will certainly make for my lord talking about god will do for david an enduring house because my lord is fighting the battles of the lord and evil will not be found in all your days so she makes the first statement and she says god will establish david's kingdom why because david fights for god every time david fights he fights for god when he fought goliath what did he say you come with shield and spear but i come in the name of the living god david fights god's battles and she said god will establish your kingdom now i told you everybody knows david is going to be the king she knows it and she says god will fight the battle a great house david's going to be a great king there's a second thing she says god will defeat david's enemies look at verse 29 should anyone rise up to pursue you and seek your life then the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living with the lord your god but the lives of your enemies he will sling out from the hollow of a sling now let me tell you what all that says is this when anybody comes after david she says god's going to wrap you up and keep you safe and your enemies will be like a rock that you put in a sling and let it go they'll be thrown away he said david you don't have to worry god will defeat your enemies then in verse 30 she says david you're going to be the king verse 30 and when the lord does for my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you and appoints you ruler over israel david is going to be the king and i put this you know i put this up this way it's all over the nation that david will be the next king so i mean she's really wise she's sitting there saying you're going to be the king god's going to fight your battles one of these days you're going to rule and then she says the fourth thing and she says don't get vengeance look at verse 31 that this will not cause grief or a troubled heart to my lord both by having shed blood without cause and my lord having avenged himself i'm gonna stop there because of something else she says when time comes and you're the king you do not want to look back and say boy i blew it then we talked about this several weeks ago there are things that we may do we got to be careful because we don't want to say 10 years from now five years from now well i look back on this and be ashamed of what i've done she's actually saying to david you don't want to be king and look back and say yeah there was a time i went and killed a guy and killed all those people i shouldn't have done that that doesn't make me look like a great king she's saying you don't want to be ashamed of something you've done in the past let it go let it go is what she's saying do not cause grief or a troubled heart by shedding blood without a cause and so she says david don't do that because remember the king has got to be fair he's got to be trustworthy he's got to be someone that they respect and i made it sort of a little joke of the first services sort of like david you don't want that on your permanent record you know when we were in school we had some permanent record which we don't know what that was but we thought we were in trouble and though she's saying to david you don't want on your record that you killed this man that you killed all these people for no reason and then she says something that's amazing she says this don't forget me remember me when you become king look at the end of verse 31 she says when the lord deals well with my lord then remember your maidservant what does she mean what do you think she means don't forget me she could be saying you know one of these days i may be single and don't forget me she could be saying you know protect me because she doesn't know she's gone one way and david could kill her she could go back home and her husband could kill her she doesn't know and all she's saying to david is don't forget me and i actually think that she's saying don't forget me cause i could be single one of these days watch watch so he amazing so what does she do she deals with the wrong i admit that it was wrong she corrects the wrong and she seeks forgiveness and then she gives wise counsel she says david you fight for god god will defeat david's enemies david will be the king don't forget that don't get the vengeance and remember her and that's what we see and it's just incredible and we see that what david does then is his response is too full he blesses god and he blesses abigail look at the next verse 32 then david said to abigail blessed be the lord god of israel who sent you this day to meet me you know what he says god is protecting me by sending you and then he says in the next verse bless you he says and blessed be your discernment and blessed be you who kept me this day from bloodshed and from avenging myself with my own hand he says blessed be god by sending you and blessed be you for helping me think about what i was about to do he said she showed discernment you know what discernment is it's wisdom she understood that david was one day going to be the king and he did not want to have killed all these people and then one day be king and somebody say yeah but five years ago you wiped out a whole bunch of people for no reason and david says bless god for sending you and bless you for stopping me now let me just say something she she doesn't know she thinks now david's not going to kill her but she doesn't know what's going to happen when she gets home she doesn't know what's going to happen when nabal finds out what she's done so so bottom line you he said you kept me from killing and i want you to think about two things from this maybe be used to help others just like there may be a time that you help somebody else see that what they're fixing to do is a bad thing and then may we never seek vengeance and so look at verse 34 he says nevertheless as the lord god of israel lives who has restrained me from harming you unless you'd come quickly to meet me surely there would not been left to nabel as until the morning light as one male he said if you hadn't been here i'd have killed every man there so david received from her hand which she brought up and he said to her go in peace go to your house i have listened to you and i've granted your request she said he said i'm not gonna come kill everybody then thank you for stopping me thank you well abigail's gonna go back what's gonna happen let me show you something this wise woman was used by god to not only keep david from doing wrong but she was used to save all the men in the household of naval think about that when you think about some amazing women in the scripture esther ruth deborah abigail mary god uses men and women and he's raised up abigail to save david and you say save david i thought she's saving naval yeah but she's saving david from doing something that's going to be wrong it's going to hurt him the rest of his life and she's saving her husband as well well then just belongs to the lord if anybody's going to get vengeance let god do it so david goes back and says well that guy got away with it no he didn't remember what we said nobody ever gets away with it watch what happens then abigail will go faster this last part then abigail came to nabel and and behold he was holding a feast in the house like the feast of a king he's having a party what an idiot he's having a party he didn't know it but there were people on the way to kill him and what's he doing he's having a party and look what it says about it he was holding a feast in the house and naval's heart was married within him for he was very drunk so she did not tell him anything at all until the morning light she came to talk to him he's so drunk and having a party she says he he would never remember anything i ever tell him anyway so she decides to wait until the next day he was a drunk and foolish man he didn't even know that she just saved his life he didn't even know it so look what happens but in the morning when the wine had gone out unable his wife told him his things and his heart died within him but he became as a stone and about ten days later guess what happened to him david killed him no ten days later the lord struck nabal and he died who does vengeance belong to vengeance belongs to the lord his heart became like a stone he either went into shock or had a stroke ten days later the lord dealt with him the lord dealt with him and look what david says in verse 39 when david heard that nabel was dead he said blessed be the lord who has pleaded my cause of my reproach from the hand of naval and kept back as servant from evil god stopped me from doing evil the lord also returned the evil of nabal on his own head i'm gonna stop there he says wow thank you lord you stopped me from getting vengeance and you took care of the problem wow god deals with those who wrong us when you say they did me wrong and they're going to get away with it they're never going to get away with it god writes all wrongs god deals things vengeance belongs to god not to us well watch what david does can you imagine this next line then david sent a proposal to abigail to take her as his wife i wonder where he got that idea uh remember me when you're the king well david's not the king yet but he says you know what she's pretty sharp and she's real pretty and so that's what am i gonna do then the servants of david came to abigail at carmel and they spoke to her saying david has sent us to you to take you as his wife now she has been the wife of a very rich man now she's going to be the wife of a hunted man running and living in the wilderness she's going to go from luxury to living in caves is she going to do what's she going to say is she going to say yes or no well you know what she's pretty smart she says this man is going to be king one day that should be a pretty good deal you know when you become king so she arose and battered face to the ground verse 41 and she said behold your maidservant is made to wash the feet of my lord's servant she says i'll marry him and i'll come be like a maid to his maids. and then abigail rose quickly wrote on a donkey and her five maidens who attended her and she followed the messengers of david and became his wife and we say this is it right for david to marry abigail is david already married who's he married to michael he's married to michael which is saul's daughter he's already married to her and then if you look at the next verse david had also taken a hennum of jezreel and they both became his wives so how many wives did david have right now has three and we go what david david david david i don't think you're supposed to do that and he said well in our culture you know kings and sometimes people have more than one wife did that make it right no it didn't we pretty much have decided that it's from the scripture it's always better just to have one right and notice what this next verse says now saul saul had given michael his daughter david's wife to penalty the son of linkage who was from ghost so saul gave david's wife away to another man let me ask you something what do you think david's going to do about that when time comes let me let you realize something one of david weaknesses is women he's gonna have problems in the long run with women deuteronomy 17 17 says this that when a man becomes king he is not to multiply horses because that means you're going to trust the horses in your army instead of god he says you're not to multiply gold because then you trust your wealth rather than god and then he says and you're not to multiply wives because they will turn your heart away from god and david this is his weakness it's women and the truth is all of us have some kind of weaknesses that we all have strengths we all have weaknesses if you remember in the past it says see and we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight and the sin that does so easily entangle us i think each person has some area that we say i struggle with that area all the time david struggles in the area of women we're going to see it as we go through his life well let me give you some applications so we can be through here the first one is let's leave vengeance to the lord that's what we got to do we see that david was going out of his way to do wrong and abigail stopped him and he looks back and he says thank you lord for sending abigail and thank you abigail for coming and stopping me from doing something i knew was wrong vengeance belongs to you and god took care of it the second thing is let's let's be used by god to touch other lives maybe it's to help people grow maybe it's to help people deal with sin maybe it's to encourage or build up as god used abigail in david's life maybe god can use us into other people's lives and so we can help them grow and those kind of things the third thing is let's deal with our wrongs listen if we do somebody wrong admit it correct it if possible sometimes it's not possible to correct something that we've done and then the third thing is seek forgiveness because when we confess our sins he's faithful and just to forgive us but seek forgiveness from the person that we wrong and all we can do is ask for forgiveness they may or may not forgive us but that's up to them not up to us last but not least just remember that jesus christ is our substitute in the same way that abigail came and said put the sin on me put the mistake on me she was saying i'm taking the place of my husband jesus said put the payment for sin on me the wages are seen as death and jesus died for us instead of us having to be to die and to be separated from jesus christ we have the great substitute that we come to god simply by faith in jesus christ who died and rose again for us as our substitute [Music] you

Channel: Stillwater Bible Church

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Length: 33min 15sec (1995 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 17 2021