Restraining Grace

David was anointed by God to be Israel's king. When you read books like 1 and 2 Samuel, it's clear God protected David and repeatedly delivered him from his enemies. Today on Truth for Life, we'll discover how God's providential grace also protected David from himself and how others were used in that process. Alistair Begg is teaching from 1 Samuel chapter 25. Well, we're picking up our studies at the eighteenth verse from which we read, and I encourage you to have your Bible open so that you can check and make sure that everything that I'm saying is actually in the Bible.

Perhaps a question to begin. Who is it that stopped David from rashly taking matters into his own hands and shedding blood? Well, the answer, of course, is that God did.

But it is also equally true to acknowledge that although God was the one who restrained him, God did not act in a vacuum. And that is where we find this amazing encounter involving this young lady, Abigail, to whom we've been introduced as one who is both discerning and beautiful and yet who at the same time is married to a man who is not so nice and tender as he ought to be. She is clearly somebody who does not let the grass grow under her feet. Three times, if you check the text, you will see that she is in a hurry. First of all, here she's in a hurry to meet David.

At the end of the chapter almost, she's in a hurry to get married to David, and at one point, in the middle of it all, she's in a hurry to get down from her donkey. Now, we have noticed that David, back in the previous chapter, had refused to take matters into his own hands. And yet, here in the opening section of chapter 25, he is ready now to seek to avenge himself. His attitude of response to what has been the revulsion of this man Nabal is an understandable response.

The man responded in an evil way to the expressions of good. However, the action that he's planning to take is not good. And what we have in the balance of this chapter is essentially an amazing illustration of what we refer to as God's restraining grace. David is prevented from following through on his rational outburst, a kind of rush of blood to his head, a hotheadedness. He's prevented by the cool and pacifying tones of this discerning and beautiful woman. Now, presumably, the word of David's ferocity has convinced her that the situation is grave, and her response to that is to, unlike her husband, proceed with a generous gift. And perhaps we can notice that she has a plan, and about this plan, she says nothing to her husband. You can see that. Clearly, she knows him.

He seems to be a stingy soul. He was concerned about David's men being able to tap into his water source or really to have any access to any of his supplies. So, if he had seen what she was doing in loading down these donkeys, he would, without question, have been opposed to it. And in an interesting fashion—and you'll see it in the text—she says to the young men, Go on before me, and behold, I will come after you. Her posture when she finally meets David is very, very clear. She's not on her high horse. She may be discerning and beautiful, but she does not approach David in that way. You'll notice that she is very quickly off her donkey. She is immediately doing obeisance before David. Now, this is simply a mark of respect for the ladies who are reading. Don't immediately take this as if somehow or another this is a token of subservience on the part of the female towards the male, because, if you remember, back in chapter 24, this is exactly the posture of David when he bowed before Saul. So her plan is a good one.

It's a clear one. Her posture is one of humility. And then her plea follows in verse 24. She fell at his feet and said, On me alone my Lord be the guilt. Please let your servant speak in your ears. We won't delay on that, but how else would she be able to be heard were it not for his ears? Clearly, this is an expression of the desire on the part of Abigail to make sure that David listens very carefully to what she has to say.

Let me be the one who bears the guilt. I wonder, has she discovered that David and his men were planning only to kill the male population? And if so, it's a pretty skillful move on her part.

Because if she takes all the guilt, then she may be able to divert the punishment. She also says, I don't want you to pay any attention, verse 25, to my husband. Now, we're not going to pause and talk about this, except to say that clearly she and Nabal seem to be long past the benefit of any kind of seminar on marriage matters.

They're long past reading Lasting Love, How to Avoid Marital Failure. Now, don't pay attention to him. Nabal is his name. It means fool.

It's fool by name and fool by nature. Quite striking. And Alter, in his quite helpful commentary, says it is hard to think of another instance in literature in which a wife so quickly and so devastatingly interposes distance between herself and her husband. She's quick to point out as well, in the balance of verse 25, that she was not there when this happened. But I, your servant, did not see the young men of my Lord whom you sent. The inference, I think, is straightforward.

If I had been there and if I had seen this unfold, then you can be pretty sure that things would not have come out as they have. Now then, she says, verse 26, my Lord, as the Lord lives. I found it difficult to read that—you probably picked it up as you were listening—because you need to make sure that as you have the text in front of you, when she uses my Lord here, she's of course referring to David.

And this is, again, a deferential way of speaking. And when she speaks of the Lord, you will notice that it is capitalized in your text. Now then, my Lord, i.e., David, as the Lord lives, the God of Israel, and as your soul lives—interesting entry of that dimension of life that goes beyond the merely physical—and because the Lord has restrained you from blood guilt and from saving with your own hand. Now, this is an interesting statement, because it is in the past tense you will notice the Lord has restrained you. Well, actually, the Lord is, through Abigail, in the process of restraining him.

But in actual fact, what she says there fits with what had previously happened in chapter 24. Because if David had done what the men said to him to do—"Now's your chance, kill him"—then things would have been very different. But he was restrained. And here, in the words of Abigail, the Lord through Abigail has restrained him once again. And so she says to him, Leave it then to the Lord. Leave it to the Lord to take care of your enemies, and he will take care of my foolish husband. I think that is the whole emphasis that you find there in verse 28. Please forgive the trespass.

The Lord will surely do this for you. You have been restrained, back up in 26—I mean, not 28. And so let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my Lord be as Nabal. Nabal is a foolish man. The fool comes to destruction. Let your enemies come to destruction too. And then, still in her approach in 28, please forgive the trespass, and please receive this present. Let the present that your servant has brought to you be given to the young men who follow you. Now, she makes this appeal on the strength of God's plan for David.

You see that there. For the Lord will certainly make my Lord a sure house. Now, if we ever make it into 2 Samuel— and I'm not going to make any promises in that regard, or threats, actually—we will discover that what she says here finds its fulfillment. And again, as a cross-reference, in chapter 7 of 2 Samuel, you will find that the word of the Lord is as follows, And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever. Before me your throne shall be established forever. So what she says here is prophetic in its dimensions. My Lord, the Lord will make for you a sure house, because you, David, are fighting the battles of the Lord.

What she's actually saying is, you can be sure about your dynasty. And at the same time, you may rest in this security which God provides. Verse 29. If men rise up to pursue you and seek your life, the life of my Lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the Lord your God. It's a wonderful phrase, isn't it?

What is this picture here? On the one hand, bound up in this bundle, and then the enemy's being slung out from the hollow of a sling. Well, we sang it instead upon Jehovah, didn't we? Hidden in the hollow of his blessed hand.

That's the one sight. This is for you, David. Hidden in the hollow. At that time, you remember, when David went against Goliath, he had a pouch where he had placed these stones, one of which was used. Well, as I read a little more, I discovered that it wasn't uncommon for shepherds to keep stones in their pouch as a way of counting the number of their sheep for which they were responsible.

So they would have twenty stones in their pouch, and they'd say, Now, there are twenty of them out here that I need to go and care for. Well, there you have this amazing thought, that God knows his own, that he keeps them in the bundle of his security. Blessed is the man who doesn't walk in the counsel of the ungodly or stand in the way of sinners, and then at the end of the psalm. But the wicked are not so. We are by nature wicked.

We are by nature rebellious. Only when the shepherd comes and seeks us out and adds us, as it were, to the pouch of his electing love may we know this. Now she says in verse 30, And when the LORD has done according to my Lord all the good that he has spoken concerning you, notice, and has appointed you prince over Israel.

Now, I wondered, you find yourself saying, Where does she get all this stuff? Was she in a Bible study with this Samuel? Did she have a home Bible study in Ramah, and Samuel used to fill her in on the bits and pieces and the details? This is in keeping with what we've seen, that this notion of David as the anointed of God, as the prince of Israel, as the coming king. We find it popping up again and again en route to the throne. And here, on the lips of Abigail as well. When the Lord has done this, then, she says, verse 31, your conscience will be clear, your hands will be clean, and you will be able to go to bed at night knowing that you have not tried to work salvation for yourself, that you have not taken matters into your own hands.

This is so wonderful, isn't it? The restraining grace of God. If he had gone with his initial response, all of these men, Nabal included, would all have been dealt with ruthlessly. This encounter would never have taken place.

Why has it not taken place? Because of the restraining grace of God. Who restrained him? God did. No, Abigail did. No, Abigail did. No, God did. This is concurrence. She did.

God did. Both 100 percent engaged in the process. Don't allow mystery to overturn your confidence. And then, reminding us that she has some measure of self-interest.

Just a sentence at the end of 31. And when the Lord has dealt well with my Lord, then remember your servant. And don't forget me, she says.

Does it make you think of the scene at Calvary? And, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And, of course, remember what an encounter that was today.

And in the same way, remember me! She surely had knowingly of how quickly her plea would be answered. That speech is amazing. David could not fail to be impressed by both the eloquence, the wisdom, the persuasiveness of it, the absolute skill of it. It's a lesson, actually, in how to approach somebody in a context along those lines.

But he does not, interestingly, commend her initiative, nor does he commend her person. And in 32–35, what we have is, if you like, David's apprehension of God's restraining grace, his understanding of what has happened in this encounter. And so you will notice. What, after all, is Abigail?

Only a servant who came in the name of the Lord. And so he sees Abigail clearly. He sees her, as we're about to discover.

But he sees beyond her. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me. Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, you who have kept me this day. But I thought it was God. Yes. You have kept me this day from blood guilt and from working salvation with my only hand.

Here we go. For as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, who has restrained me from hurting you? But if he was only going to kill the males, how would he be hurting her? Presumably by bringing her into widowhood.

Although that could be a sidebar on its own. You'll notice he says, And timing was everything, unless you had hurried and come to meet me. Oh, if she had gone off and had a week of vacation to try and come up with a good plan, well, things would have gone in a very different direction. If you hadn't hurried and come to meet me truly by the morning, I'm gonna tell you, there'd be no males left in your population at all. If you hadn't hurried, if you hadn't come, if you hadn't left at the exact moment when you left, then you would never have been on that place in the mountain, under the cover of the mountain, when we came round the mountain. You'll be coming round the mountain when you come. That's it! Under the providence of God.

The trains run. Under the promises of God, the hospital visits emerge. The blood tests are returned.

The children are born. Life ensues. You hurried. You came to meet me.

It was crucial. Now, then it says, Then David received from her hand what she had brought him. I listened, he said.

I obeyed your voice. Now go in peace. Well, she goes back to her house, but then in 36 we have the description of the death of Nabal. She arrives home to find her foolish husband pretending to be a king.

Look at it. She never told him when she left. That was a good plan. She couldn't tell him when she came back, because his heart was merry within him with drink. Matthew Henry says, There is not a surer sign that a man has but little wisdom, nor a surer way to run the little he has than by drinking to excess. Nabal, very rich, very drunk, very dead. What an obituary. In the light of dawn, when the wine has out of him, when he's no longer propped up by the anesthetic, he either has a heart attack or a stroke or something. He's a dead man. And in about ten days the Lord has taken him home.

Well, it ends, thirty-nine to the end, with David being vindicated and then subsequently married. Just a word on this. As the Lord's anointed, he had been reviled by Nabal. When Abigail had told Nabal of that, told him about these things, presumably he realized that it wasn't just man to man in the reviling that he had done but that he had only insulted the very anointed of God the King. And if I dare suggest that anybody even remembers all the way back to Hannah's prayer in 1 Samuel 2, where at one point in Samuel 2 and in, what is it, verse 10, the adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces. Against them he will thunder in heaven. Back in verse 3, talk no more so very proudly. Nabal, don't talk like that.

Let not arrogance come from your mouth. For the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. You see, what happened was the Lord kept back David while returning the evil that Nabal did David on his own head.

It's a reminder, isn't it? It runs all the way through the Bible. Be not deceived, God is not mocked.

Whatsoever a man sows that he will also reap. So, this is all about the restraining grace of God. Does God restrain in other circumstances? God restrains in every circumstance. Were it not for the restraining grace of God, we would find ourselves living in Dante's Inferno. Were it not for the fact that God, in his mercy, restrains the animosity and the hatred and the vileness of mankind in rebellion against him?

Then it is unthinkable. Oh, says David, if you hadn't just come at the right moment... Don't we all have stories like that in our lives? We look back on it, and we said, Man! Wow! We realize when in the slippery paths of youth, with foolish steps I ran, your hand, unseen, conveyed me up and brought me safe to man.

We thank God for his restraining grace. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. If you are profiting from our study in 1 Samuel, you can listen as Alistair teaches through the entirety of 1 and 2 Samuel.

In these studies, you'll learn about the life of David, his reign as the king of Israel, and how his kingship points forward to the eternal king, to Jesus. The complete study contains 110 messages. That's a lot of hours of listening, all on a single USB, and it's just $5, which is our cost to produce it. You'll find the USB in our online store at truthforlife.org slash store. You can also listen to all 110 messages for free using the Truth for Life mobile app or on our website at truthforlife.org. By the way, the Basics Conference that Alistair is hosting for pastors and church leaders is continuing today in Cleveland.

There are more than a thousand pastors in attendance, and I know they would be grateful for your prayers today and tomorrow. If you'd like to enjoy the conference at home or in your office, you can watch it online for free. Go to basicsconference.org. The conference starts at 9 15 a.m. Eastern Time, goes till 9 p.m. Eastern Time today, and then from 9 15 until noon tomorrow. You'll find the agenda for the day on the website. You'll also be able to view Alistair's talks, as well as the messages from guests Rico Tice and Sinclair Ferguson. Again, the website is basicsconference.org. Thanks for listening today. When jealousy sparked King Saul's hostility toward David again, why didn't David take advantage of the king's vulnerability and settle matters once and for all? We'll find out tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.