David's Wilderness Experiences (Part 6)

Well, take your Bibles then and open to 1 Samuel.

! Tonight we're going to be looking at chapter 25, and we'll finish up 25. Take it all in one chunk. And it's a rather lengthy chapter, actually, somewhat 44 verses, but I'm going to read the whole thing.

So look at your Bibles, follow along as I read it. Then Samuel died, and the Israelites gathered together and lamented for him and buried him at his home in Ramah.

And David arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran. Now there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel, and the man was very rich.

He had 3,000 sheep and 1,000 goats, and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. The name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife, Abigail.

And she was a woman of good understanding and beautiful appearance, but the man was harsh and evil in his doings. He was of the house of Caleb. When David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep, David sent ten young men.

And David said to the young men, Go up to Carmel, go to Nabal, greet him in my name. And thus you shall say to him who lives in prosperity, Peace be to you, peace to your house, and peace to all that you have.

Now I have heard that you have shearers. Your shepherds were with us, and we did not hurt them, nor was there anything missing from them all the while they were in Carmel.

Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a feast day. Please give whatever comes to your hand to your servants and to your son David.

So when David's young men came, they spoke to Nabal according to all these words in the name of David, and waited. Then Nabal answered David's servants and said, Who is David, and who is the son of Jephthah?

There are many servants nowadays who break away each one from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men when I do not know where they are from?

So David's young men turned on their heels. So that's kind of where we got that expression, and we turned them on their heels. And went back, and they came and told him all these words.

Then David said to his men, Every man gird on his sword. So every man girded on his sword, and David also girded on his sword. And about 400 men went with David, and 200 stayed with the supplies.

Now one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, saying, Look, David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, and he reviled them.

But the men were very good to us, and we were not hurt, nor did we miss anything, as long as we accompanied them when we were in the fields.

They were a wall to us, both by night and day. All the time we were with them, keeping the sheep. Now therefore know and consider what you will do, for harm is determined against our master and against all his household, for he is such a scoundrel that one cannot speak to him.

Then Abigail made haste and took 200 loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep already dressed, five sais of roasted grain, 100 clusters of raisins, and 200 cakes of figs, and loaded them on donkeys.

And she said to her servants, Go on before me, see, I am coming after you. But she did not tell her husband Nabal. So it was as they rode, as she rode on the donkey, that she went down under cover of the hill, and there were David and his men coming down toward her, and she met them.

Now David had said, Surely in vain I have protected all that this fellow has in his wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belongs to him, and he has repaid me evil for good.

May God do so, and more also to the enemies of David, if I leave one male of all who belong to him by morning light. Now when Abigail saw David, she dismounted quickly from the donkey, fell on her face before David, and bowed down to the ground.

So she fell at his feet and said, Oh, on me, my Lord, on me let this iniquity be, and please let your maidservant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your maidservant.

Please let not my Lord regard this scoundrel Nabal, for as his name is, so is he, Nabal, is his name, and folly is with him.

But I, your maidservant, did not see the young men of my Lord whom you sent. Now therefore, my Lord, as the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, since the Lord has held you back from coming to bloodshed, and from avenging yourself with your own hand, now then, let your enemies, and those who seek harm for my Lord, be as Nabal.

And now, this present, which your maidservant has brought to my Lord, let it be given to the young men who follow my Lord. Please forgive the trespass of your maidservant, for the Lord will certainly make for my Lord an enduring house, because my Lord fights the battles of the Lord.

And evil is not found in you throughout your days. Yet a man has risen to pursue you and seek your life, but the life of my Lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living with the Lord your God, and the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from a pocket of a sling.

And it shall come to pass when the Lord has done for my Lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you, and has appointed you ruler over Israel, that this shall, this will be no grief to you, nor offense of heart to my Lord, either that you have shed blood without cause, or that my Lord has avenged himself.

But when the Lord has dealt well with my Lord, then remember your maidservant. Then David said to Abigail, Blessed is the Lord God of Israel who sent you this day to meet me, and blessed is your advice, and blessed are you because you have kept me this day from coming to bloodshed and from avenging myself with my own hand.

For indeed, as the Lord God of Israel lives, who has kept me back from hurting you unless you had hurried and come to meet me, surely by morning light no males would have been left to Nabal.

So David received from her hand what she had brought him and said to her, Go up in peace to your house. See, I have heeded your voice and respected your person.

Now Abigail went to Nabal, and there he was holding a feast in his house like the feast of a king. And Nabal's heart was merry with him for he was very drunk.

Therefore she told him nothing, little or much, until morning light. So it was in the morning when the wine had gone from Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him, and he became like a stone.

Then it happened after about ten days that the Lord struck Nabal, and he died. So when David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, Blessed be the Lord who has pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and has kept his servant from evil.

For the Lord has returned the wickedness of Nabal on his own head. And David sent and proposed to Abigail to take her as his wife. When the servants of David had come to Abigail at Carmel, they spoke to her, saying, David sent us to you to ask you to become his wife.

Then she arose, bowed her face to the earth, and said, Here is your maidservant, a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my Lord. So Abigail rose in haste and rode on a donkey, attended by five of her maidens, and she followed the messengers of David and became his wife.

David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel, and so both of them were wives. But Saul had given Michael, his daughter, David's wife, to Paltai, the son of Laish, who was from Galim.

Okay, so there's chapter 25, long chapter. And I hope you weren't bored as I read. Surely you weren't bored with the Word of God.

And maybe following along in your Bibles. Now, this passage tonight gives us a subject that is pretty familiar to all of us.

And it is the subject of anger. Anger. Now, I'm looking at you right now, and you're all looking at me, and you're looking quite innocent right now.

As if somehow that anger has never, ever, ever been a problem to you. So I'll just ask you, have you ever been angry with someone? Hmm? I see some heads nodding up and down.

I don't see anybody going like this. Because the fact is, we all have. We've all been angry at someone or something, certainly, but at someone. Well, we've all experienced that.

But let me ask you this. Have you ever been so angry with someone that you behaved badly? Hmm?

Anybody? There's Mike shaking his head. One of the elders. He's perfect to the core, right? I think probably we would all say, yes, at one time or another, I have behaved badly.

And I'm not talking about, you know, necessarily doing what David was about to do and had it in his heart to do to Nabal, and not just to Nabal, but all of his male servants.

And since he was a rich man, we're talking about a lot of people here. I'm not talking about that, but we still sometimes behave badly, maybe said things that we should not have said, or maybe even did things that we should not have done, things that were unbecoming of a follower of Christ.

And so, I'm not asking you to look back on your life and remember all of those things. Some of those things are not something we want to remember. But we've all committed this kind of sin, this kind of anger.

And then what makes it worse, we have sometimes have tried to justify it. Justify it based, perhaps, upon the seriousness of the thing that was done to us.

You know, and we say, well, I deserve to be mad. I mean, just look how bad this was. Look at this ugly thing that this person did to me, this bad thing that this person did to me.

And so, we kind of justify the anger and the result of our anger based upon the, you know, the crime against us as we see it. Or maybe we've justified it based upon the character of the one with whom we are angry.

You know, that person's kind of like a Nabal, you know, ugly person, a bad person. Just look at this wicked person. I mean, I have every right to be angry at this kind of person.

Just look at the kind of person this is. And so, we kind of try to justify that. If we don't try to justify it before other people, we at least justify it in our own hearts.

Or perhaps we justify it based upon some quote, right, unquote, that we think we have.

You know, right to show anger in this particular instance. Or perhaps we even justify it on the basis of our upbringing.

It's just who we are. You know, it's the way I was raised. My whole family has been hot-headed. You ever met anybody like that? I've met someone like that.

It would just seem like every family member was like that. Mom and dad raised their kids to be, you know, hot-headed. Or maybe some people will blame it on their, kind of their ethnic heritage.

You know, I'm Irish. You know, ever heard anybody claim that? You know, you kind of justify the fact that I'm just hot-headed because I'm Irish. I'm part Irish.

Or maybe it's your genetic makeup. I'm red-headed. Anybody out there red-headed? You know, we kind of use excuses like that. You know, whatever the justification.

But the Bible repeatedly speaks out against anger. Now, there is a good kind of anger and Jesus is the model for that. But mostly, anger is a bad thing.

And the Bible speaks about that quite often. In fact, let me give you a few verses. Psalm 37, verse 8, Refrain from anger and turn from wrath. Do not fret.

It leads only to evil. Proverbs chapter 14, verse 29, One who is quick-tempered displays folly. Just like Nabal. I mean, Nabal means folly, means fool.

Proverbs 19, 11, The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger and his glory is to overlook a transgression. Proverbs 29, 22, An angry man stirs up strife and a furious man abounds in transgression.

Ecclesiastes 7, 9, Do not hasten to your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools. Putting it pretty bluntly.

Let's go into the New Testament. Ephesians chapter 14, verses 31 and 32, Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice.

And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Colossians chapter 3, verse 8, but now you must also rid yourself of all such things as these, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language from your lips.

James chapter 1, verse 19, verses 19 and 20, So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

And we could go on and on and on. And believe me, there are many other passages in the Bible, both old and new, that speak against or condemn the anger and wrath of man.

And so, in our passage tonight here, in chapter 25 of 1 Samuel, even the great kingly David, apple of God's eye, man after God's own heart, even David was not immune to the sin of anger.

And that's what we have here in chapter 25, an example of David's sinful anger. Whether or not he carried it out, carried out his desires that were generated by his anger is not the issue.

David was angry and in his heart was murder, murder. Now, before we look at this chapter, I want to call your attention, this is going to be a little bit difficult because it's been a little while since I've been in 1 Samuel.

But I want to call your attention to the contrast between the David that we've just read about here in chapter 25 and the David of chapter 24.

You're going to have to kind of remember what took place back there in chapter 20, just one chapter before this. We studied this several weeks ago. Do you remember the David of chapter 24?

Let me remind you. He has the golden opportunity to get rid of his enemy. Remember chapter 24? His enemy being Saul, of course.

And who would blame him? You know, just look what Saul's been trying to do. I mean, who wouldn't take advantage of this prime opportunity to get rid of your enemy, the enemy that is trying to kill you, the enemy that is bent on murdering you, and that was Saul.

And Saul had even attempted to kill David without success, and yet he wanted to kill him, and if his aim had been straight, he would have killed him.

But what did David do? Well, David allowed Saul to live. David gave wisdom and grace. He showed wisdom and grace towards Saul.

Saul. He even expressed love for his enemy. All this is back there in chapter 24. David even extended forgiveness to his enemy.

Right there, he offered forgiveness to Saul. All that in chapter 24. But then, just one chapter later, we have David with a totally different state of mind here.

He's full of anger and hatred and malice, and he's about to commit murder, and not just the murder of one man, but many men.

All right, so let's see it. First, let's just kind of analyze David's anger based upon what we have recorded here in this chapter, or what we might call David's anger.

Consider, just consider some features or some aspects about his anger. And the first thing we have in the chapter is a brief and very brief note about the death of Samuel, which I think is a little bit odd.

I mean, one little verse, Samuel, who's been such a key figure, you know, in the Bible, and it just says there in verse 1 that he died, and then we move on from there.

And so, since the Bible does that, then I'll just move on from there. But when we get to verse 2, the reason for David's anger begins to unfold for us.

Now, remember, David is a man on the run, running from Saul, of course, and so he's in the wilderness. He, along with a little army of faithful men, are hiding out in the wilderness areas around Judah, and around the tribe of Judah, that area.

And verse 7 indicates that they haven't just simply been camping out there, being idle, they've been busy, they've been, you know, protecting the shepherds in that area.

That's what verse 7 says. Your shepherds, this is what was reported to Nabal, your shepherds were with us, and we did not hurt them, nor was there anything missing from them all the while they were in Carmel.

And we read on in the chapter, various places, and we understand that David and his men were protecting the people in that area. They were kind of a, you know, a protective force for the shepherds.

And it's likely that they expected some kind of reward for that. And you might think, well, you know, that's kind of stinking of them. Why didn't they just do it out of the goodness of their heart?

Well, this was a customary thing, and we understand that when we read this chapter. It was customary for those who were protecting the shepherds to get some kind of reward in return.

And so, that's the way it was. And so, it would be all right to ask for some compensation compensation for this protection. And so, verse 4 tells us, when David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep, David sent ten young men, and David said to the young men, go up to Carmel, go to Nabal, and greet him in my name.

Meaning, of course, that it's time to collect the reward for the protection. You know, when's the best time to ask shepherds for reward?

When they're shearing their sheep, that's when they collect the money, that's when they make their money, that's when they have some profit. And so, this is the prime time. And Nabal is shearing his sheep.

Nabal was a rich man, according to verse 2. Nabal had a lot of sheep, a lot of shepherds, 3,000 sheep, 1,000 goats. So, it was a big, big business.

And thanks to David, none of Nabal's sheep, were lost, according to verse 7. And so, notice in verse 8 again that David makes, really, he makes no specific demands here.

You know, this is what I expect, you know, here's a bill for my services. He didn't do anything like that. Actually, he just says, please give me whatever comes to your hand, to your servants, and to your son David.

That is, just do the right thing. And I leave it to you, to be as generous as you will, and it's your choice to make.

And that's really the only demand that David puts upon Nabal. Now, how does Nabal respond? Well, verses 9 to 11, so when David's young men came, they spoke to Nabal, according to all those words in the name of David, and they waited.

All right, so they went and reported and said to Nabal everything that David expected them to say. And then they waited to see what they would get.

Then Nabal answered David's servants. He said, who is David? I mean, who's he? Not who is he? I don't know who he is. Who is he to ask me such a thing? And who is this son of Jesse?

And then he goes a step further. There are many servants nowadays who break away each from his own master. He's calling him basically a slave. You're just a slave who's broken away from your master.

I mean, he knew of the drama that was taking place there between Saul the king and David and so forth. And so he says, shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shears and give it to men when I do not even know where they're from.

Actually, I don't even care where they're from. All right, so Nabal's living up to his reputation. We're given a little information about that. Verse 3 says this about him, that he was harsh and certainly lives up to that.

And he's evil in his doings. Matter of fact, in the Hebrew text, this is a count, we can count this from the Hebrew text, not necessarily any of the English versions, but Nabal's speech contains eight personal, first-person pronouns, eight personal references, I, my, eight times.

And I think this is on purpose. The author included this because the author wants to, clearly wants to emphasize this wealthy man's sinful self-centeredness.

All right, so, you know, it's not shaping up very good for Nabal. And so, maybe David is justified in being angry, right? You know, that's kind of what the author wants us to conclude.

And Nabal certainly was a scoundrel. In fact, not only that, he was a fool. Now, that's not our opinion about that. His own wife tells us that.

In fact, his own name tells us that. There in verse 25, remember, Abigail is coming to David, asking for mercy.

And she said, for as his name is, so is he. That is, his name means fool. Nabal is his name, she said.

And folly is with him. So, this is who Nabal was. And so, he's just living up to his name and living up to his character.

And Nabal now defames the integrity of David. He calls him a rebel. Actually, he calls him and his men runaway slaves.

Worthless men. And when Nabal says, who is David and who is the son of David, he knows who they are. Actually, it's just that, you know, they're beneath him.

In fact, you know, there toward the end he's having this big feast, the feast as a king would have. I mean, Nabal, you know, pretty high on himself.

And so, this is the kind of man that Nabal was. And so, this is the reason for David's anger, right? Nabal's reaction to his, not demand, but his very gracious request.

So, that's the reason for it. What's the reaction? David's reaction, the reaction of his anger. Well, verse 12 tells us, so David's young men turned on their heels and went back.

And they came and told David all these words. And David's reaction then, put on your swords, boys. You know, we're going to battle here.

And verse 13 tells us that David readied how many men? 400 men. 400 of his 600. Now, did David really need 400 armed men to deal with Nabal?

Well, he's not just going to deal with Nabal. He's going to annihilate all of the males in Nabal's family and among his servants, I would imagine, all the shepherds and all of them.

I don't know how many there were. I mean, David's really hacked off, angry, steamed. He's going to, he's going to, I mean, he's angry.

And so he said in verses 21 to 22, basically, look, look at all I've done for this man. And he has repaid me evil for good. I'm justified in my anger and, and what I'm going to do about my anger.

In fact, he even says, may God do so and more also to the enemies of David if I leave one male of all who belong to him by morning light. He's going to kill them all.

Now, this isn't right, is it? Have you ever been that angry? I'll probably say no to that. They're so angry that we would go out and kill people for it.

I hope you've never been that angry. And yet, what does Jesus say about the heart, the heart that's angry?

It's the same as murder. It's the same as murder. And so maybe we're all guilty of that at some point. someone has said, you know, an angry man rides a horse that runs away with him.

Of course, that, you know, that didn't apply to women, right? It would never be that angry, right? Someone else has said, anger blows out the lamp of the mind.

That's kind of interesting. Also, the proud man hath no God, the envious man hath no neighbor, the angry man hath not even himself.

I mean, he loses himself in anger. All right, but let's move on. First, David's anger considered, and now let's just see David's anger challenged.

His anger is challenged from none other than the wife of Nabal. So, news of what has happened reaches Nabal's wife, Abigail. That's what verse 14 says.

Now, one of the young men probably a servant. He's not named, maybe a servant, maybe a shepherd. He's a young man in the household of Nabal, I think probably a servant of Nabal.

And so this young man, he tells Abigail, Nabal's wife, and he says, look, David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master and he reviled him.

He scorned him. He turned his servants on their heels, sent them home packing, scorned David, reviled him. But the men were very good to us.

Abigail, I want you to know that. These men, David's men, they were very good to us and we were not hurt, nor did we miss anything as long as we accompanied them. When we were in the fields, they were a wall to us both by night and day, protection to us.

Abigail, you need to know that. All the time that we were keeping our sheep, they were a wall to us. Now, therefore, know and consider what you will do. Need to step in here, need to do something.

For harm is determined against our master, that is your husband. David's coming for him and for us against all his household, for he is such a scoundrel.

Your husband. I can almost imagine he said, please don't get mad at me, but your husband Nabal, our master, is a scoundrel.

No one can say anything to him. Okay. So maybe you can do something about this. And so Abigail, verse 18, made haste. She's going to do something about it.

She goes out to meet David and she doesn't go empty-handed, does she? She loads down, I don't know, dozens of donkeys with groceries, including 200 loaves of bread.

And then all the other stuff that she took. That's for 600 men and their families. I mean, it really was what David was seeking in the first place, not asking for money, just asking for food.

He needs to feed his army and their families. And that was all he really needed anyway. And so Abigail's going to meet that need. So she takes all the these groceries and a small herd of livestock to go out to meet David.

But she has more than just provision of need in mind here. And she, verse 23, when she meets David, she falls on her face before David, bows before David.

In fact, in her dialogue with David, six times in her appeal to David, she calls herself David's handmaid. She humbles herself before him.

Fourteen times, matter of fact, she calls David her lord. You have it repeated over and over again, lord with a small case l, all right? Master, lord.

And she, according to verse 24, offers to take the blame for what her husband did. And she tells David, in verse 26, that the lord has sent her to stop him from committing murder out of anger.

She's concerned about David. And why? Because she knows that he's a good man. That's what she says in verse 28. And also, she knows David's destiny.

Whether God imparted that knowledge to her, maybe it was common knowledge among the people. David's going to be the next king. She even says, for the lord will certainly make for my lord an enduring house, a legacy.

So whether this is a prophecy or she just knows these things, she confirms that. She confirms David's kingship in verse 30. And with that in mind, in verse 31, she tells David that when he becomes king, he's going to regret this day if he follows through with his desire.

Out of anger, his wrath toward Nabal and all of his household. She said, you're going to regret this day.

Don't do this. And was she successful? Well, verse 32 says, then David said to Abigail, blessed is the Lord God of Israel who sent you this day to meet me.

So she was successful. And so third and finally then, as we walk through this story, David's anger conquered. It's conquered by Abigail.

Actually, by the Lord who used Abigail as an instrument. So David said to Abigail there in verse 33, blessed is your advice and blessed are you because you have kept me this day from coming to bloodshed and from avenging myself with my own hand.

See, vengeance doesn't belong to us. It belongs to someone else, doesn't it? As we shall see. For indeed, he goes on to say, for indeed, as the Lord God of Israel lives who has kept me back from hurting you.

I mean, even Abigail's life was somewhat in jeopardy as she went out to meet the armies of David and went out to meet David who is blinded by his own wrath and anger.

He kept me from hurting you. Unless you had hurried and come to meet me, surely by morning light, no males would have been left to Nabal.

And I think, including Nabal. You know, we really need more people like Abigail, don't we? And we need more people like David.

We need to be like David who was willing to listen, listen to Abigail. Abigail. We need Abigails to turn people from their wrath and to do it graciously and kindly and very effectively.

And we need people like David willing to listen. Now, sometimes we're not willing to listen. We get so angry, nobody can talk to us. I've met people who tend that way.

They're just angry people. And you can't convince them otherwise. That's a sad thing. Sometimes we get angry. Maybe it's guys, it's our wives that turn us if we listen to them.

Or maybe it's a good friend. And of course, behind that good friend or that wife or whomever it may be is the Lord turning us from an anger that is sinful an anger that has turned now to malice.

It's kind of the passage I read a moment ago. You know, first it kind of starts, turns into clamor, we get loud, and then malice and wrath, and you know, when it bears its fruit, then we've really messed up.

So we need people like that. When Abigail told her husband, as we go on with the story, what happened? His heart died within him, the Bible says, and he became like a stone.

Now, most scholars think that this is a description of a massive stroke that he's experienced. He became like stone. He may have had a stroke perhaps because of his anger.

You know, it just blew a head gasket, as sometimes we refer to it. You know, I've met people like that get so angry that the veins pop out on their neck. Anybody like that? Face gets all red.

I had a deacon like that several years ago in another church. Boy, I'm glad I don't have deacons like that guy. I'd sit there in a deacon's meeting and he'd get so angry his face would get red and the veins would pop out on his neck.

I'm just sure his top of his head was just going to blow off, you know. Maybe that's what happened to Nabal. Or maybe he had a stroke out of fear.

I mean, Abigail didn't tell him right away because he was having this big party as if he were a king and then the next morning she shares with him the details of what David was going to do but now is not going to do.

Maybe he's just so filled with fear that he had a stroke. But actually the bottom line is God judged Nabal. God judged him himself.

That's what verse 38 says and the Lord struck Nabal and he died. I mean, it's a pretty dangerous thing to go against God's anointed King David who will one day be king.

But really it's this way vengeance, God says vengeance is mine. I will repay. And he did, didn't he?

So think about anger. Think about it. There is a righteous kind of anger. That is when God's name is scorned.

We can be angry. When, you know, his spirit and his work is being blasphemed and being put down by the world, we can be angry.

But not to the point of malice. We leave vengeance to God. But most of our anger, in fact, 99.999999 infinity percent, most of our anger is sinful.

and when it happens, we must stop it before it becomes malice, before it becomes murder.

Murder, whether just in our hearts, our minds, or whether it becomes actual murder. And it can. We can become so angry. All right, well, another side of David, right?

Maybe this is, I think, maybe the first time. Not going to be the last time that we see sin in David. But this is a very serious chapter and it opens a window into David and yet at the same time allows us to see that David was willing to listen and his heart could be changed.

And it was by Abigail who became his wife.