David Goes After Nabal (1 Samuel 25:1-22)

[Music] [Music] [Music] well turning your bibles to first samuel 25 we're of course continuing our study of first samuel we've seen the lives of david and saul and samuel and this great powerful time but seeing a contrast because remember saul is the present king but he's already been rejected by god david is going to be the future king he's coming and and we see a great contrast here between saul who is the king now he's the man of the flesh when you think of saul the truth is you just really don't like him he's done so many things he wanted to kill his own son he wanted to kill david or he's trying to kill david even now he's disobeyed god god has already rejected him from being the king he's a man of the flesh he's a man of pride and then you see david he's come and he'll be the second king he was anointed as king probably at about age 14 or 15 he won't become king till he's age 30. he's a man of faith he's a man after god's own heart he's trying to do all the right things and he's on the run from saul and so as we look at our passage this morning i'm going to say two things we're going to see the death of samuel which all this whole book i mean in the very book that begins with of course the mom and daddy and samuel being born and everything and so we're going to see the death of samuel and then we're going to see david's episode with nabel now sometimes you could pronounce him nabal or nabel naval i think is fine and we're going to do it that way and as we look at this passage we're going to see two things we're going to see the passing of a leader that's samuel but we're going to also see the problem of a leader and that's david and you say david i mean david's done great up to now in fact everything that david does so far has seemed to be right i mean he killed goliath he's done all the right things so what do you mean the problem of a leader we'll see and in fact one of the great verses in first corinthians 10 it says take heedless you think you stand you fall up to this time david has done everything right but in this passage he's got the possibility to do something that will affect him the rest of his life and we'll see what happens so as we look at this passage i want to raise some things think about leadership what can we do to be leaders we think about knowing our own strengths and weaknesses and then holy the whole idea of remembering that vengeance belongs to the lord that's one of the key things we've seen in these last couple of chapters you may have heard somebody say something like this you know if a person was a real christian they wouldn't do that what they're saying is if you're a christian there's certain things you wouldn't do the idea that once you trust christ his savior you won't do anything well here's do certain things well the truth is this every believer is capable of any sin jeremiah says the heart is deceitful and wicked who can know it when we trust jesus christ as savior we are born again we are a new creation we've been placed in jesus christ we were dead but we're now alive but the truth is we still have the flesh we still have the bent to do wrong and i always like to draw this little chart up and this is a believer that we have a body we have a soul which is the part that relates to the world around us we have a conscious which tells us right from wrong we have a flesh which is a natural bent to sin sometimes called the old man sometimes it's called sin within us and we also have a human spirit we were dead spiritually now we're made alive spiritual as the human spirit and then the holy spirit actually comes to live inside of us and so you notice and say well this is the new creation this is the the believer the problem is we still have the flesh we still have the natural bent to sin and that pulls on us all the time and that means we are capable of anything and so when a person would say something like well a real christian wouldn't do that the truth is this a real christian would do anything you put us in the wrong place at the wrong time we're capable of doing the wrong thing we're going to see david and as we look at this passage david is about to fall and he said what are you talking about well david in the past he had a chance to kill saul because saul's been after him he's had a chance to kill saul instead of killing saul he basically said no i will not touch the lord's anointed vengeance belongs to the lord and we talked about that and we talked about how that we don't get people back that vengeance belongs to the lord and when people do us wrong we trust in him well saul has tried to kill david over and over and david says no vengeance belongs to the lord in this passage we meet a man named nabal and then we look at this passage david says vengeance belongs to david and we're going to see how that ties together what happens so we're going to see really two key events this morning samuel's death and then we see david's vengeance david is going after this guy named nabel he wants to kill him and we'd say well i mean he did david wrong but it's david's supposed to do that as we look at this let me give you the outline of the passage we're going to see the death of samuel that's verse 1 and then 2-19 david actually protects naples and we'll talk about what do you mean protects him we'll see what that is and then we'll see david seeking to get vengeance so we're going to meet several people in this passage this morning so there's a lot of great things well as we start the chapter it it's really a sad chapter that starts because samuel dies samuel has been the man he look look at chapter 25 look at verse one then samuel died and all israel gathered together and mourned for him and buried him as his house in rhema david arose i went down to the wilderness of paris now he's been in a wilderness area he goes a little further south he's still near the the dead sea he's still near in getty he's still near a place called mayon uh and near a town called carmel we'll see how that fits together in just a minute but samuel died then when samuel died he's the last great hope of the nation at that time because the people who could they turn to they could say well we could turn to samuel because he's mature and he's godly and he's the prophet and he's everything well they can't turn to saul saul's not a leader they can't turn to david david's on the run so who do they turn to now and this marks the end of the judges in the bible because samuel was a prophet a priest and a judge when you look at his life he was a prophet the bible actually says that every prophecy that he ever made always came true he was a prophet of god he was a priest he was from the priestly family and he could offer the sacrifices he was the go-between for the nation of israel and then the third thing he was a judge the word judge is uh the hebrew word sofa team which actually means a deliverer and so he helped fight for israel and so he's he's just been a great one and the last big battle that they had a huge victory over the philistines was when he was the leader ever since then they've had victories but not in the same way so samuel has died and when you think about this there's two things there's sadness because there's mourning for the great man and that's what it says it says all israel gathered and mourned uh gathered together and mourned for him but also there's a void there's the leadership because saul's not respected by the people people know that saul says one thing and does another and we've been talking about that you want to be a leader for god you want to be a leader you've got to keep your words you've got to be honest and saul has not done that saul is an evil man and i hate i mean we hate to say that but saul's done some really bad things right now he's trying to kill david he actually even wanted to kill his own son and and so there's a void in leadership sometimes when a great leader dies like samuel we think who's going to be next sometimes we look through the bible and we saw when moses died well what happened i raised up joshua and we see when here's peter and paul and they died well god raised up somewhere and then when you look through it you think what's god going to do when some of these great godly leaders die well god just raises up more people that's really the plan that's really the plan when you really think about it that's why where our role is to teach people our role as believers is to equip the saints to do the ministry our role is to take what we've been taught and entrust these to faithful people because god is continually raising up leaders and so samuel has died and it looks like who's going to be the next leader well we know it's going to be david david's going to be a great leader right now he's not able to lead because he's running for his life let's think about samuel for just a minute and being a leader you know if you really want to be a leader leadership is servanthood jesus said if you want to be great for god be a servant those who want to be leaders must be servants and jesus told that when they argued they were arguing back and forth and jesus said listen in this world leaders are bosses but it shall not be that way with us if any man wants to be great let him be a leader for even the son of man jesus did not come to be served but to serve and so if we if you really want to be a leader and i think if we ask every one of you in this room and you said do you want your life to count for christ do you want to leave would you want to be a god to use you to touch a lot of lives and to be a great leader for christ every one of us would say well sure yeah well you don't have to be a servant to do that when you think about samuel's life without turning back to chapter 12 i want you to remember there were four things we looked about this man's life he was honest and that means that whatever he said he kept his word he was fair he didn't take bribes remember he was a judge and he could have taken bribes he said i have not bribed or done anything in fact at the end of his life when he decided to retire so to speak and he turned it over to saul he said have i stolen anybody's property have i taken any bribes have i done anything wrong and the answer was no he was a man of prayer he said i will never stop praying for the nation of israel and he was a man who obeyed the word of god you want to be great for god be honest be fair be a person of prayer live by the scripture that's a person of integrity and so when we think about it what can we do what can we do to be great leaders we'll be a servant first peter 4 10 as each one has received spiritual gifts every one of us in this room who know jesus christ as savior we have at least one spiritual gift where are you serving if being great is being a servant where are you serving second thing is be faithful first corinthians 4 2 is that more of a brethren is required of a steward to be found faithful that's really the key isn't it when you stand before jesus christ what do you want to hear him say well done good and faithful servant that's what we want we want to hear him say well done good and faithful servant so we got to be faithful now and then the third thing is pass on the truth take what we've been taught and entrust this to faithful people well samuel's dead what's going to happen now what's going to happen samuel has died david is on the run in the wilderness of quran and saul is after him and we're going to meet somebody new this morning and we're going to meet a guy and we're going to see david's episode with a guy named nabel now we'll get to it in just a second but nabel's name you know what his name means now would you name your child this his name is naval you know what nable means it means fool fool that method he named his child they named him fool or maybe as he got older everybody else the bad guy's a fool and they just started calling him that but anyway his name is nabal which means fool so let's meet him let's see what's going on verse 2 of chapter 25. now there was a man in mayon whose business was in carmel and the man was very rich and he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats and it came about that while he was shearing his sheep and caramel now verse three is a parenthesis so skip down it says skip down to verse four it says and while it came about that while he was shearing his sheep and caramel that david heard in the wilderness that nabal was shearing his sheep so we meet this man and his name is nabel and he's living in a place called carmel not mount carmel which is on the other side this is a little town called carmel and it's near in the wilderness of mayon which is where in getty is it's where the ziphites were we've seen those people in the last few weeks as david's been hiding this man has a lot of money he's got three thousand sheep that is a lot i mean can you think of a normal little family that might have three or four sheep or five he's got three thousand he's very rich three thousand sheep a thousand goats and he's shearing his sheep that means this is a special time it's time for a kind of a festival because that's what they would do now verse 3 gives us a parenthesis it's going to tell us about these people look at verse 3. now the man's name was nabal and his wife's name was abigail and the woman was intelligent and beautiful in appearance but the man was harsh and evil in his dealings and he was a caliber so what we learned is he's got a wife named abel his name nabel means fool and uh he we're gonna see in his wife his name abigail she's intelligent and she's beautiful and the name abigail means my father rejoices let me just say something as we look at this this had to be an arranged marriage you know what i mean i mean let's think about it right i mean she's not going to be attracted to this guy he's a fool he's harsh it says he was a harsh man and evil in his dealings it says she is intelligent and beautiful it had to be an arranged marriage i mean can you see the bringing them together this is fool marrying you know abigail which is my father rejoices i'm not sure her father was rejoicing but anyway this is what happened right and so look at these two came together i want you to think about it nabel is called foolish she's called wise naval is evil she's good he's repulsive she's beautiful he's arrogant she's humble look at the difference and so we get a little background now let me just give you some information that you can't see till you get all the way through the passage the best that we can tell david has 600 men with him they're out in the middle of nowhere this man named nabel has all kind of sheep 3 000 sheep a thousand goats and so what david does is he and his men come and they talk with the shepherds of naval and they make a deal with them and they say listen we will protect you we'll put our 600 men we'll go all around your sheep and nobody will bother them animals won't get in we'll protect your sheep and so when it's time to shear the sheep you'll take care of us and they made an agreement that's the best we can tell you can't always tell it right here we'll tell it before the passage is over so what david does is for a period of time he and his men protect nabels sheep and goats now it's time it's time for the sheep shearing notice back at verse three it says it came about excuse me verse two it came about while he was shearing his sheep in caramel verse four that david heard in the wilderness the naval wish you're in a sheep well this is great for david david says it's time it's time to pay up you know we've been protecting his sheep for all this time they're shearing the sheep by the way it was a festival when they do that they'd come together time of the year they're going to shear the sheep they'd come out there they'd build bonfires families would come out they would share sheep they would eat they would do all the stuff so it's it's a festival it's a good time david says it's a good time and it's time for us to get paid for taking care of them because we protected them the whole time and so you know we we should get something for this so david is going to send his men so look again look at verse 5. so david sent 10 young men and david said to the young men go up to carmel visit nabel and greet him in my name now here's what you say and you shall say have a long life peace be to you peace be your house peace to all you have and you could see this right they come in mr nable peace to you peace to your house peace to everything every we're just here to brag on you peace peace peace because we're wanting something we're wanting what we think we deserve because we protected your sheep and so say to him may you have a long life peace to you peace to your house peace to everybody and then go on and say now i've heard that you are shearing sheep that your shepherds have been with us and we we have not insulted them nor have we they missed anything all the days they were in carmel so in verse seven he actually says your shepherds have been with us and we haven't insulted them i mean we haven't gone down there we haven't hurt them we've actually protected them and it actually says they've not missed anything all the days they were in carmel it says we've protected you the whole time and you've not missed one sheep we've protected you from animals we've protected you from robbers we've taken care of you and so then they say and then ask your young men and they will tell you therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes for we've come on a festive day this is a big party please give whatever we find at hand whatever you find at hand to your servants and to your son david now david sings his message he doesn't go but he sends ten men and they come to to nabel and they say may you have a long life may peace be on your family may peace be on everything we're just glad to be here we want you to know that from the you know we have a deal and we've been protecting you and now it's time and your son david i want you to notice the end of that verse it says and pass this on and to your son david david is showing humility to nabal and he actually says you're like a father figure to me nabal i've come as your son asking for what you should give to us wow and so you'd think oh this is this is something well what happens next now we already know what kind of person is naval he's harsh he's evil he's not very smart and watch what he does when david's young men came they spoke to nabel according to all the words in david's name and they waited you can see them going so we protected you and everything and we would david would like for us to get what's owed to us and they waited and you can just see neighbor looking at them like who do you think you are so look what nabel says but nabal answered david's servants and said who is david who is the son of jesse there are many servants today who are breaking away from their masters look what he says who is david let me tell you something everybody knew david was david has been a hero ever since he killed goliath he's been a hero in the nation of israel when they sang david has killed his ten thousands listen everybody knows who david is and so nabal knows who he is but when nabal says well who is david i don't know any david i mean david's not him and he says who is the son of jesse he knows who david's father is and he even knows he's on the run from saul because he says there are many servants today who are breaking away from their masters you know what he's doing he said i don't know who you are i don't know who you people are i don't know david i don't know his i don't know it and listen the best thing you can do is get off my property that's what he's gonna say i don't know who you are he's actually making fun of him and he's making fun of david in fact in verse 11 he says uh let me let me i'll bring it back just a second he says shall i take my bread and my what notice it's all my shall i take my bread and my water and my meat that i've slaughtered from my shearers and give it to men whose origins i don't know i don't know who you are i don't know who you are i don't care you can come to me all you want to and i don't care who you are you know what he could have done if he was a wise man he could have called one of his shepherds and says listen these men said they've been helping have they been helping you and they would have said they helped us a lot in fact they kept people from stealing our stuff and they protected us from animals they did everything that's what a wise man would do but this man is not a wise man what's his name fool and so he doesn't even listen he doesn't listen to them at all he doesn't listen to anybody he just said you think i'm going to take my bread my water my meat that i've slaughtered from my shearers and give it to men i do not know he said i don't know david get out of here he's slamming it nabel has gone back on his word there's an agreement there we can best we can tell for the rest of the passage this is an agreement that they had made at least the shepherds with david and nabel doesn't even take the time to find out what's going on and he basically says get out of my house i don't know david i don't know you i don't know anything about any kind of agreement and the best thing you can do is you think i'm going to take my stuff and give to you get out that's what he says you know the truth is this not everybody's going to be nice to us not everybody's going to be fair people don't always do what we think they will do in fact most people do what's advan you know advantageous for them and most people don't even say thank you there's a lot of people we deal with in a fallen world that's going to do you wrong and we've talked about this before if you've lived any length of time at all you already know that people would do you wrong somebody that would thought you thought was your friend will not be your friend somebody that says they would do something they won't do something sometimes you'll say but you know you said you would do that and they said i did not you you said you would do that no i did not well yes you did no i did not and don't bother me again you go hey they said they were doing you realize that people go back on their word all the time people don't do what they say i was uh talking to a guy the other day he said he was walking into a place and there was a lady right beside him right behind him so he opened the door and he just went past like that and he went you're welcome you know and until then thank you but all and of course in our culture today i'm not sure that most people thank people for anything anymore but how do we deal with it how do we respond when we're rejected when we're mistreated or when we're done wrong now we've already seen what david has done in the past when saul tried to kill him two or three different times and all of this and david had the chance to kill saul all david said was vengeance belongs to the lord not to me i will let god take care of it i won't handle this at all but we're going to see what happens this time how do we respond look at verse 12. so david's young men retraced their way and they went back and they came and told him according to all these words in david's dealing with saul david said let god deal with him vengeance belongs to the lord what does david say this time look at verse 13 david said to his men each of you gird on your sword so that each man girded on his sword and david also guarded on his sword and about 400 men went up behind david while 200 stayed with the baggage they're getting their swords ready you can see david saying they came back and they said well david he said he know who you were he said he didn't care anything about what you did and he's not going to give any of his stuff to you and david said put your swords on give me my sword okay 200 of you you're going to stay here hold down the fort the baggage 400 of us we're going to go kill every man there because that man went back on his word and he's not going to get away with it and we're going to go there and we're going to kill every man there get your swords on let's go david said to his men verse 13 each of you girl on the sword so they put the swords on david good on his sword he got his 400 men he left 200 behind the question is is this right should david go after nabel to kill him what do we say no vengeance belongs to the lord when somebody does us wrong do we get them back somebody does this wrong do we say i'm going to just wait i'm going to get them one of these days i'm going to be watching and get them i saw a car the other day that that said you know when somebody does me wrong i don't get mad i get even that's what that's in the back of the car i said well don't get too close to him i'm telling them what could happen right does vengeance belong to the lord avengers belong to us what's david doing well dave has done something that he's not supposed to do in fact this tells us that great passage the bible take he unless you think you stand you fall that him who thinks he stands to take heed that he does not fall let me tell you can do good one time and do bad the next time you can say i had victory over here and i didn't have victory the next time don't say i would never do that you don't know what you'll do if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time there's no telling what you would do so don't say i would never do something like that when david said about saul vengeance belongs to the lord i bet you could say to david do you think he'll go kill somebody else and say no i'd never do that he's fixing to do it right now he's about to go kill a whole bunch of people now it's going to be a whole bunch because see this man has a 3 000 sheep and a thousand goat goats and he lives there i mean he's got a number of people so david's not gonna go kill just this man he's gonna kill everybody every man that's his plan wow so look what happens let's go back and let's talk about abigail because now we're going to find her verse 14. but one of the young men told abigail nabel's wife saying behold david sent messages from the wilderness to greet our master and he scorned them now you can see this guy took a chance but he went up to abigail and he said i need to talk to you because our lives are in danger and she went what said you know your husband well david sent me in there to talk to him and he wouldn't even talk to them in fact he scorned them he made fun of him and he ran them off and i got a feeling they're coming back and when they come back it's not going to be very good you're going to have to do something see scorn means to make fun of and they will made fun of david let me just say this it's not good to make fun of david i mean david is a warrior and so look what happens so this young man goes to abigail and says your husband he scorned them and then he says yet the men were very good to us and we we were not insulted nor that they mis we miss anything as long as they went about with us while they were in the fields they were a wall to us on both night and day all the time they were with us tending our sheep so he says they they helped us they they insulated us they kept the animals from coming they kept the robbers from coming we benefited greatly from them they helped us a lot now look at verse 17. now therefore no one considered what you should do you better figure out something you're the wise one here for evil is plotted against our master and against all his household and he is such a worthless man that no one can speak to him he's saying to this woman your husband is a worthless man and nobody can talk to him he's telling the truth he's worthless listen you know what a fool speaks without hearing and a fool decides without getting the information if nabal would have been any kind of wisdom at all he would have brought in somebody and said who are these people what exactly have they done for us that they deserve something from us the answer would have been of course they do they they were a wall of protection around us but a fool speaks without even hearing that a fool decides without getting any information so what's abigail going to do now remember he's evil and she's good and he's foolish and she's wise so look what she does abigail herding took 200 loaves of bread and two jugs of wine and five sheep already prepared and five measures of roasted grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and 200 cakes of figs loaded them on the donkey listen she said he needs they need food and i'm going to get them food and we're going to load up bring some of the donkeys in here start piling this stuff up here because we're going to take this to that to david she knows who david is let me just tell you something don't think that these people don't know who david is everybody in israel knows who david is he is a national hero at this time and so she knows exactly who he is so she says to the young men said go she said young man go on before me behold i'm coming after you but she did not tell her husband neighbor she didn't tell you know why because if she had gone to him and said listen i think the best thing for us to do this man is really angry he's going to come kill everybody we better get him some food and we better get it there neighbor would have said shut your mouth and don't come to me again and i'm not doing any of that that's what he told her so he would have stopped her and so what he decides to do is she says i'm not going to even tell him what i'm doing and she does it now watch this is what i call david's vengeance verse 20. it came about that she was riding on her donkey and was 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 you can see that she's on the way trying to find david and she's coming with her donkey with her you know the things and they've got the food and everything she's coming and all of a sudden here comes david and his men and they're coming down they're going to meet in a valley and you can see what is davey going to do when he sees this woman coming to him with all this food what will he do look what david had said she's going to reach him to abigail has tried to reach david before he got to the camp and look what david said verse 21. that david had said this is what he had said surely in vain i've guarded all that this man has in the wilderness so nothing was missed all that belonged to him and he returned me evil for good now when people do us evil are we supposed to return evil with evil or evil with good and so david says i'm going to return evil with evil he says may god do so to the enemies of david and more so if by tomorrow morning i leave as much as one male of any who belong to him he says i'm going to kill every man in that household i'm gonna kill every man in that camp that's what i'm going to do because he did me wrong i did him good he did me wrong so i'm going to get him back now is this right is this what david should do romans chapter 12 never return evil with evil return evil with good we talked about this several weeks ago and we said that when when somebody does us wrong the natural thing is to feel like you want to get them back but the supernatural thing is leave vengeance to the lord do not return evil with evil return evil with good but david is messing up let's just say it david says i'm gonna go kill that guy that's it and so david is failing david is not leaving vengeance for the lord he is seeking vengeance for himself now as i said well ago what will david sue do when he's riding and he looks up and there's this woman coming toward him what will he do god's going to use abigail and we're going to see what god does with abigail and one of the great truths is that god can use us because we live in a world that says if somebody does you wrong get them back god can use us to show the world that vengeance belongs to the lord not to us and we'll talk more about that at another time so what have we saying samuel died great morning david's men guards the naval's flocks they go ask for provision naval runs them off they're all coming to kill him and abigail is on the way to stop david and what we can say is this that david is on the way to do wrong and let me ask you something sometimes we do things wrong sometimes we get vengeance do you think david if david goes there and kills every man there do you think 10 years down the road david's going to be proud of that do you think when david becomes the king he's going to be proud that he went into a camp and killed all those people sometimes in our lives we've gotten people back and you look at your life now or are we proud of something we might have done a few years ago which i know i'm not i wish i hadn't done that that's why the bible says don't do that the bible says vengeance belongs to the lord the bible says do good in the place of evil so let me give you some applications the first one and we'll go quickly is let's let's leave vengeance to the lord let's leave vengeance to the lord so many times people are going to mistreat us let me just say this don't expect people to do right don't expect people to keep their word they're not going to not always don't expect people to reward us or thank us for things and and so how are we going to respond well leave vengeance to the lord never return evil with evil leave it to god just remember this take heed unless you think you stand you fall you may say well i don't really have a problem in that area you don't know you got to be careful dave we had said to david david oh david won't try to get vengeance look how he's dealt with saul well up to this point he's done great but now he's about to fail so take heed unless we think we stand we fall remember this you and me we are capable of any sin you put us in the wrong place at the wrong time and we might do wrong so be careful we've got the flesh it's pulling so don't get in the wrong places at the wrong time be careful vengeance belongs to the lord second let's be wise in our words nabel was not very wise keep our word if we say we're going to do it do it second is listen before we speak and they will never question never answer never ask anybody never said to these people help he just did his own thing wisdom says find out what's going on ask some questions finally let's be people of integrity and what we saw was the life of samuel he was let's be servants and here's what we want to do this is what samuel did be honest let's keep our word let's be fair let's treat people the way they should be treated let's be in prayer let's be men and women who maintain our fellowship with god as we pray and let's be obedient let's live by the word of god [Music] you

Channel: Stillwater Bible Church

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Length: 34min 49sec (2089 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 09 2021