Beauty and Two Beasts, Part 1

I wonder how many wives today in the evangelical church at large who have to discreetly give money to the Lord because they love the Lord as much as their husband loves his career path.

They're living out the exhortation of the apostle Paul who commended believing women in that early church who sanctified their homes and blessed their husbands and their children more than their families could ever realize with their biblical insight and their spiritual dedication and godly commitment. Welcome to Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. We're currently working through a series on the life of King David called The Singer. Today, we're introduced to a woman named Abigail. Abigail was a wise woman who loved God, but she was married to a foolish man. Her husband and King David had a hostile encounter. While David was soft-hearted toward King Saul, that was not the case this time. David wanted to kill Abigail's husband and it was Abigail's wisdom that kept David from sin. We're going to look at that encounter today.

This message is called Beauty and Two Beasts. In Pat Riley's book, he recounted his basketball coaching career. He told the story of a rather infamous 1981 season of the Los Angeles Lakers. The year before they had won the world championship, they were slated to win back-to-back, quite a team with their star player Magic Johnson. However, three weeks into the opening season, Magic Johnson tore some cartilage in his knee and was out for three months. The other players, Riley wrote, just sort of rallied and they all played their hearts out and they engaged in the challenges of playing without their star and they won more than 70% of those games while Magic sat the bench. There was a particular date selected when he would be able to come back and as that date approached, the media was going crazy. It was on every sportscaster's program. The newspapers were all talking about the return of Magic Johnson and while doing that, the spotlight shifted away from the hardworking efforts of these other players and they grew resentful and somewhat jealous. In fact, by the time he returned to the court, that night, that game was sold out, every seat taken.

The spotlight swung on him and when he was introduced, it was an incredible, long, loud ovation. But Riley said the tension underneath, you could cut it with a knife. They barely won that game against a rather inferior team. It wasn't long before the players turned on each other, the morale of the entire team collapsed, the coach was fired and the Lakers lost their playoff bid. Riley writes these interesting words. He says, because of pettiness and resentment, we executed one of the fastest falls from grace in NBA history. And then he kind of coined a phrase as he wrote, it was all because of the disease of me. Everybody on the team was infected.

The disease of me. I thought of that when I came to this study today. In fact, if you were with us in our last study, when you came to the end of chapter 24 of 1 Samuel, you were amazed at the humility and the patience and the self-control of David. The king has slipped into the cave as a pit stop where David and his men are hiding. It's the perfect opportunity for revenge against this murderous king. And David responds with unbelievable self-sacrificing humility. The very next chapter we arrive at is the exact opposite reaction. In this conflict, David's temper not only boils over, but it's going to turn into potential murder. And this time you've got to keep in mind it isn't against the king of Israel, it's against this rather unknown wealthy rancher named Nabal. So what we're going to see is one of the fastest falls, as it were, from grace in the early life of David, as David gets all wrapped up in the disease of me. And by the way, before we dive in, if there's a lesson to underscore at the very outset, it would simply be this.

Victories won today will still be temptations to be fought tomorrow. Chapter 25, if you're there, you notice it opens with a funeral. David's beloved friend and mentor, Samuel, has died. In fact, as I opened to chapter 25 in my study to see where we would go next, I read those first three words. Now Samuel died and thought that's my sermon, that's where I'm going to stop. So much to say. However, this isn't the biography of Samuel, this is the biography of David that we're focusing on.

But I do want us to just pause long enough for taps to play, shall we? Let's stop and recognize the passing of the spiritual warrior, the last of the judges, a priest who had been dedicated to the worship and service of God when he was a little boy by his godly mother some 80 years earlier. He's the founder of the school of prophets, their influence for the cause of God is felt throughout the nation. He's the king maker, anointing their first king effectively with great courage dethroning him.

And he has only in a few years earlier now just anointed David. David has been mentored in the ways of faith and trust and now this grand man of faith dies. My mind went to this past summer, Marsha and I traveled to California and I had an opportunity to speak at a conference center for the week and David and Lucy Bergraff traveled with us for a few days, we went early.

Marsha had never been to the west coast and so we showed up early to see some of the sites in the San Francisco Bay area, that famous street, Lombard Street, of course we did all the tourist picture taking, Big Sur, we took that trip along the coast, the Golden Gate Bridge watching the fog roll in, just amazing sites and then we went to Muir Woods and we walked through this incredible redwood forest, amazing. Some of those trees, over 2,000 years old, massive, can't see the tops, take a dozen plus people to hold hands and encircle one of those massive trees. One of them had fallen earlier in the summer and there was a placard near it that said the impact of this tree falling could be heard miles away. I can't imagine how the death of this man reverberated throughout the entire nation. The old prophet is gone. Everyone comes, including David and his mighty men, to pay their respects. And I say all of that to sort of set perhaps what is the emotional setting in David's own heart. You can almost feel a little bit of the heaviness, the sadness, perhaps even a sense of emptiness that David would have felt and you read the words at the end of verse one that simply say, then David rose and went down to the wilderness of Paran and you're left to question now what? David's spiritual leader is gone. The anchor of Israel has passed away. If there was ever a time for David to doubt, for David to sense an insecurity in his own heart and mind, to be impatient, it would be now. He has no idea that the next form of prophetic encouragement is going to come from the lips of an unappreciated godly woman. So with that as a setting, let's get into this scene.

There are three primary characters, a few playing secondary roles, but the first character is introduced to us and character is the right word for this guy by the way. Verse two, there was a man in Man whose business was in Carmel. The man was very rich. How rich?

He owned 3,000 sheep and 1,000 goats. That's how rich. This man was wealthy.

In fact, the Hebrew word for rich can be translated literally heavy. In our vernacular, we would say this man was loaded. He was loaded. If he lived today, he'd have a huge house and a five-car garage.

In those garages, it would be a Bentley and a Mercedes sports coupe, a Lamborghini, a Ferrari, and best of all, a Chevy pickup truck right there. He was smart. Now the problem with Nabal is not that he's rich. The problem is he is godless. Nabal means fool. Some Old Testament scholars that I read think this is his nickname. The word Nabal or fool, you got to keep in mind, is not a reference to some kind of intellectual deficiency. It refers to a person and a character who denies and defies God for the fool has said in his heart there is no what?

No God. In the Bible, a fool is someone who denies God. A wise person is someone who walks with God.

It has nothing to do with IQ. What's especially tragic is that we're told here, as he's introduced here at the bottom of verse 3, he's a Calebite. We're told he is a descendant of Caleb, that great pioneer, that godly man of faith who served alongside of Joshua.

This descendant of Caleb knows nothing of the character and faith of his forefather. The description worsens. There in verse 3, we're told that Nabal was harsh and badly behaved. You could render that evil in his dealings. In other words, Nabal is demanding he is deceptive. His word is no good.

His handshake means absolutely nothing. In fact, over in verse 17, he's further described by one of his servants as a man who will not listen to anybody. We can't speak to him. So you put all of this together and here's a guy, you can almost see him, he's a wealthy, out for himself, cheat you out of your last dime kind of guy. He's deceptive. He's arrogant. He would be the kind of guy that, if you met him, it wouldn't be long and he'd lean back in his chair and he'd tell you how he pulled himself up by his own bootstraps.

That he was the self-made man and you'd be forced to listen to him. I couldn't help but think as I read this description that the world is full of Nabals. Godless, self-made, proud, deceitful men.

They are fools in designer clothing. With that as a backdrop, the next character emerges and if there's a mismatched couple in the Bible, it would be Nabal and his wife. She's described in verse 3.

Notice the middle part. The name of his wife was Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful. Discerning, you could translate that. She had outstanding insight. She was perceptive. In fact, from what we will later learn of her as she testifies to David, we know that she loved God as much as her husband loved himself. She loved her people and cared about them as much as Nabal cared about his own self. She was spiritually wise and Nabal was spiritually blind.

I agree with F.B. Meyer, the old British pastor, wrote over a hundred years ago that it is remarkable how many Abigails get married to Nabals. He wrote, they are God-fearing, tender, gentle in their sensibilities, high-minded and noble in their ideals and they become tied in union with men for whom they have no spiritual or true affinity. He would write, in Abigail's case, their relationship would have been arranged and it would have been. She more than likely came into his home as a young woman bound to this man of her father's choosing. Nonetheless, she would make her husband and her home all the more holy by her sanctifying presence and influence. She did, but we can only imagine the volume that could have been written by her.

I believe it would have been a volume of tears and internal suffering married to an arrogant, selfish, brutish man, a deceitful man who no doubt often embarrassed her sensitivities, mortifying her own character with her own sense of honesty and charitable, giving, kind nature. I have been aware as a pastor over these years of many women like Abigail. One woman came to my mind in particular who no longer attends, moved away, but came several years ago. She would be beaten if she attended church without her husband's permission. She had to ask every week.

She demonstrated incredible perseverance and insight and patience. In fact, on one occasion she came up to me and asked for prayer so that she might wisely approach her husband with the request that she attend a woman's special meeting here at church. I couldn't help but think she is married to a fool who doesn't know what he has in her. I wonder how many wives today in the evangelical church at large who have to discreetly give money to the Lord. How many women suffer silently because they love the Lord as much as their husband loves his career path or his toys, his games, his stuff? How many women have insight spiritually and their husbands are spiritually blind? They are living out the exhortation of the apostle Paul who commended believing women in that early church who were married to unbelieving men or husbands who didn't act as believers, who sanctified their homes and blessed their husbands and their children more than their families could ever realize with their biblical insight and their spiritual dedication and godly commitment.

As I read this, I want to tip my hat to every woman who can experience something of what she is experiencing. May your tribe increase. Now with that as a backdrop, here comes the crisis verse 4. David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. So David sent ten young men and David said to the young men, go to Carmel and go to Nabal and greet him in my name and you shall greet him, peace be to you and peace be to your house, peace be to all that you have.

I hear that you have shearers, now your shepherds have been with us and we did them no harm and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel. Ask your young men, ask your shepherds, they'll tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, we've come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.

Very kindly, tactfully asking him for food. By the way, if you go down to verse 15, one of the servants confirms to Abigail with these interesting words, he says, you know, it's true, we suffered no harm, we didn't miss anything when we were in the fields as long as we went with them, David's men. They were a wall, verse 16, to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. Here's what's happening, roving bands of rustlers would steal from flocks and herds, certainly the Philistines would, making the life of a shepherd all the more dangerous. But not when David and his men were around, they were like a wall. They protected the shepherds of Nabal and the flocks from being stolen.

In fact, they didn't take any of them, which reveals some of their character. This isn't blackmail, by the way. David isn't some mafia guy asking, you know, for payment for protection. It would be typical for farmers and ranchers to kind of tip the waiter here, so to speak, to give for those who provided protection for their shepherds and their flocks. They had performed a wonderful service without being asked, and now it was appropriate, can you give us some food?

Sheep shearing furthermore was a time of celebration. David has waited for the most positive moment, the most advantageous moment, when everybody would be feeling generous. The crops are in, the sheep are shorn for Nabal to provide food. Notice his rather shocking reply, verse 10. Nabal answered David's servants, who is David? Who is the son of Jesse?

In other words, who does he think he is? This stinging accusation, notice, there are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters. Those are fighting words right there. Nabal is insinuating that David has rebelled against his master, Saul.

You know, he's just roaming around the country with these good-for-nothings, disloyal to the throne, good for nothing. This is a scathing response. Look at verse 11. Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I've killed for my shearers and give it to these men who come from I do not know where?

You just hear the bite and the spit. Notice his repeated use of my. This is my bread, my water, my meat, my shearers.

It's all about I, me, and mine. He's terribly inflicted with the disease of me. He won't even give bread and water.

Do you notice? Nabal effectively says, I don't know where you've come from. Simply another way of saying, you and your men mean absolutely nothing to me. If you took care of my shepherds, well, tough luck. I didn't ask you to. I don't know you, and I couldn't care less about the lot of you.

By the way, this has political overtones to it. Nabal is denying David the respect of the king elect. In fact, if you're wondering, well, maybe Nabal had never heard of David.

Legitimate question. He would have known what his wife knew. In fact, just listen to his wife. Look over at verse 28, the latter part. Listen to what she says to David. For the Lord will certainly make my Lord, referring to David, a sure house. That word, sure, certain house, refers to a royal dynasty.

It's a political term. She's saying, David, we know you're the anointed one by God to sit on the throne as the prince of Israel, and we know that God will give your reign, your house, a royal dynasty. Nabal is saying, you're a nobody. I'm not going to pay you.

I'm not going to treat you as the king elect. Verse 12, so David's young men turned away and came back and told David all this. David said to his men, every man strap on his sword.

Get your guns on. Every man of them strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword. And about 400 men, this is overkill, literally, 400 men went up after David, while 200 remained with the baggage. That is, they stayed back to guard the camp. Now, if you're wondering what David plans on doing, let me eliminate any question.

He is not negotiating. He didn't pack a peace pipe in there with his sword. Look down at verse 21. David said, surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him, and he has returned me evil for good. David, that's not new, is it?

The king's been returning evil for your good for years. He says, verse 22, but God do so to the enemies of David, and more also, by morning I leave so much as one male alive. In other words, David and his men are going to slaughter this fool and all his descendants. Now, David has a right to be angry, but he doesn't have the right to murder anybody. Isn't it interesting that he knew he had no right to take vengeance against Saul? Now he's ready to chop off heads because he doesn't get a dozen sheep and some wineskins as payment for bunking down with Nabal shepherds and keeping them safe.

But don't miss it. David doesn't have a right to murder, but he does have a right to be angry. Be slow to anger. James 1.19 means there are times when you can be angry for the right thing, to the right amount, with the right intention.

I wonder if maybe you can identify here with David. Maybe you're still reeling from the fact that you've been recently perhaps cheated. You shook hands. You kept your word. Maybe you even went above and beyond the call of duty. You worked hard.

You were faithful. Somebody forgot to pay up or notice or reward. Even worse, your kindness was returned with harshness. Your service was intentionally overlooked. Your motives were misrepresented. Your self-sacrifice has been unrewarded. Maybe you were expecting a promotion or a pay raise or maybe just a compliment or an honest response. Maybe you just tried to do a simple deed and backfired. You helped an older woman across the street and you got to the other side.

She hit you over the head with her umbrella because you walk too fast or something like that. I clipped this news article some time ago. It happened recently.

The Denver Post ran it. Two teenage girls just on a whim decided to bake chocolate chip cookies and give them to their neighbors in their neighborhood. If you're living in my neighborhood, that's a wonderful idea. However, after baking the cookies, it was a little late at night, just after 10. They decided to take the cookies only to the houses that had the lights on. They knocked on the door of one home, several houses down.

The lights were on. The 49-year-old woman inside didn't answer but instead called the police. She would then complain that these girls caused her anxiety and she made a trip to the emergency room. The next day, she sued these two young girls and won.

They had to pay her $900 a fee to cover the emergency room visit. And the woman later told a reporter she hoped the girls had learned their lesson. What lesson? That she's a wacko? That didn't sound very spiritual, did it? In fact, that's not in my notes.

For David, the stakes are a lot higher, obviously. It isn't about cookies but he is reacting with rage that is now consuming him. He actually has a bad case of the disease of me. I've been insulted. I have been mistreated.

I have done right and I'm being treated wrong. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey and I hope you'll be able to come back next time as Stephen concludes this message. Between now and then, I want to encourage you to visit wisdomonline.org where you'll find all of our resources. The audio and the written transcripts of Stephen's teaching are posted there, but there's much more. For example, we recently received a card from a listener named Lori who's teaching a Bible study on Jonah.

She plans to use Stephen's book on Jonah as the study guide. We found that small groups and Sunday school classes find these resources very helpful and you will too. And while you're there, send us a message. It's encouraging for us to hear from our listeners and we'd love to hear from you. If you prefer, you can send us an email instead of using the website contact form. Our email address is info at wisdomonline.org. Of course, in this age of technology, we still receive quite a few cards and letters in the mail. You can send something our way if you address it to Wisdom International, P.O.

Box 37297, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27627. Thanks for listening today. As I mentioned, when we come back tomorrow, we'll do just a little bit of review from today's lesson and then Stephen will conclude this account of David, Abigail, and Nabal. Please join us tomorrow at this same time, right here on Wisdom for the Heart.