Redemption City Church
David: Poet, Warrior, King Part 10 (Mike Bartlett) 08/11/24
I'm going to run a session. [LAUGHTER] I'm going to go contact with some of that. Tracey, who's coming from the first Samuel 25, 1 through 17, in the views in the water. The water is in the pews. There are a lot of talking in the stews. The water is in the pews. It's page 231. If you do not have a bottle, go three, two, a person who would be five, one through, and a Samuel Knight, at all his real sonhood, and more for him, in the aviary and in his house that alone, and David Rose, and went down to the wilderness of Prince. And there was a man in it. Oh, no. Who was in the business, was in Carmel. The man was very rich. He had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats. He was shearing the sheep in Carmel. But the name of the man was the ball, and the name of his wife, Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved. He wasn't feel alike. David heard in the wilderness that the ball was shearing the sheep. So David sent ten young men. And David sent to the young men, looked at Carmel, and go to the ball, and breathed into the language. And thus, you shall breathe in, and peace be to you, and peace be to you, and peace be to all that you have. I hear that you have shears, now your shepherds come big with us, and be to them no harm, and they miss nothing all the time they were coming. Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore, let my young men kind of favor in their lives, for we come on a peace day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants, and to your silent David. David's young men came, instead of all this in the ball, it was they looked at it, and then they waited. They all answered David's service. Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters. So I take my bread, and my water, and my meat, that I have filled for my shears, and give it to men from, I do not know where. So David's young men turned away, and came back, and folded on it. And David said to me, "Every man, strap on the sword." He did also strap on the sword. About 400 men went up after David, while 200 remained with the baggage. But one of the young men told Gabriel the ball's life. He told David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our masters, and he rallied at them. And the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and we did not miss anything we heard in the field. As long as you went with them. They were a wall twist, both by night and by day, all the while you were with them. Therefore, we know this, and consider what we should do for the harvest determined against the masters, against all of them. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you, Meredith, and the whole team, really, for putting on VBS this week. I got a chance to just peek in, and let me tell you, man, the kids were having a blast over here. All the volunteers were doing a phenomenal job, and man, a lot of wonderful, deep truths sinking into young hearts. So thankful for all of you that served, and Meredith, particularly for your labors, putting this all together. First time we've done it here at the church, and it was a tremendous success. Grateful for that, good to see some of my boys involved as well. If you had kids in here, I know how much you appreciate that. It's good to be back here after taking an extended break, both for our normal vacation, but also some extended time to work through the unexpected death of my mother-in-law, Jamie's mom. So we've been in a very weird season. This has not been a normal summer for us by any way, stretch your form. And we're still, I think, very much in the recovery phases there, and your prayers continue to be appreciated as we're working through that. But I just wanted to thank the elders who wanted to thank our church family here, and particularly wanted to give a shout out to all of those who preached this summer for me in my absence for Mark and Josh. And Sebastian and Ken, we're gifted with many great preachers around here at Redemption City Church. And I hope you have appreciated both to hear some different voices here at our church. I hope you've also just been appreciate the passion we have for raising up the next generation of preachers here. And so it's been a pleasure for me, joy for me to just sit under some great preaching this summer, and it's also a joy to jump back in this morning for a phenomenal text here. I feel like I keep getting all the good text in this series. And so that's worked out really well. This morning, we're picking up our story in our summer series on the life of David. If you haven't been following around, if you're new, David is one of those memorable people that even people that don't go to do that. People that don't go to church a lot of times have heard the stories of David and Goliath, some of the more famous narratives in the Bible. And so there's some great moments that we've already covered. David's anointing, David's battle with Goliath, but his road to the kingship has been anything but smooth. David has been threatened since chapter 18 by Saul, who was going to take his life and he's been on the run in the wilderness as a fugitive since chapter 19. Life Way put together a nice little map that gives you a little sense of David's wilderness wanderings. I think I have it up here on the screen there. And so if you follow all those little green little squiggles, David's wilderness wanderings pretty much take him all over the nation of Israel. He goes all the way up into the north and today he's all the way down in the south and the Carmel and Mayone area. But David has been on the run living as a fugitive for years right now. And God heads away. It's interesting of forming the character of men he wants to use out in the wilderness. God has done it throughout the history of Scripture. If you think of Moses who spent 40 years out as a shepherd out in the wilderness, think of Paul who goes off into the wilderness for a couple of years to study, think of Jesus himself, of course, going out into the wilderness. There's an interesting pattern in the Bible, the way God forms the people he wants to use. And it's not just leaders in the Bible. I'm reading Winston Churchill's biography right now, one of the newer biographies that just came out. And it's interesting Winston Churchill, if you know anything about him as a leader, in the First World War he was instrumental to getting Britain prepared to battle the Germans in the First World War. And then after the war, he was kind of dismissed as a warmonger and told to pretty much, you know, pack his bags and stay out of the business of the country because they wanted peace and everybody wanted to move on from the war to end all wars. And Churchill, I just finished the chapter actually on the wilderness years for Churchill as he was pretty much taken out of the spotlight for many years. And only called back with when the threat of Hitler could no longer be ignored in the Second World War. And so Churchill went through a season of just being out in the wilderness, just being, you know, living out of the spotlight but continuing to be true to the leadership calling ahead. And so God uses these seasons of wilderness wandering in the life of leaders. He's trying to form and he's trying to shape them, it may be true in your life as well. You may be able to be able to relate to the wilderness water. Maybe there's some wilderness years in your life or in your background. Maybe you're in the wilderness right now, but that's where David finds himself. In chapter 25, David is in the wilderness and he's looking for some help. Living out in the wilderness with 600 men, depending on him, is going to be a pretty tricky feat. And so David reaches out to one of his distant kinsmen, a man named Nabal, who happens to be incredibly wealthy, who happens to have an incredible amount of sheep and also happen to arrive on a feast day when all of that incredible wealth is about to be transferred over. And so we're kind of arriving in the story here in 1 Samuel, chapter 25, right at this wonderful opportunity here for David, who has been living out in the wilderness to get some relief, some sustenance at all. And this story, as we're looking at, as a strand folds, I want to look at the three key characters, Nabal. We have David, Nabal, and his wife Abigail, but ultimately this is a story about God and his inner intervening grace. That's my big idea, I think, for this morning's message. Chapter 25 really is a story about God and his beautiful intervening grace. We're going to approach this story by looking at each character in turn, and we're going to see how God is using each of these people in the lives of the characters here. We're going to look at a foolish husband in verses 2 through 13. We're going to look at a discerning wife in verses 14 through 31, and we're going to look at a king learning to wait for God's salvation. And my aim this morning's message is that we would have the eyes to see and the heart to receive God's intervening grace in our lives. And so let's pray as we dive in this morning that God might meet us in this text and might intervene, maybe, in ways we can't quite understand or even imagine this morning. Father, so we thank you this morning for the opportunity to come to be together with your people here in your presence, mid-summer here together to week of VBS. Many people vacationing, many people trying to get their back to school plans figured out God. And so in this season, in this time, in this moment, would you meet us, God, in all the ways that we need to be met? We don't always understand what you're doing in our lives. Sometimes the situations we find ourselves in can be very confusing, can be very disorienting, like David out in the wilderness. God, and yet you use those disorienting seasons, those seasons of loss or grief or just being set aside in various ways as David is, God to intervene graciously in our lives, God. So this morning, would you meet us in all the ways that we need to be met? And we pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So we're going to start this morning with a foolish husband here. It's a great story. And of course, Naval is one of those fantastically terrible characters that makes for any good storytelling here. And so we're going to jump right in here with his story. But first, let me give you just a quick word of context. If you're reading along in verse 1, you'll see that Samuel died and all Israel assembled and mourned for him, and they buried him in his house at Rama. And so Samuel, if you're familiar with the book, which for Samuel was named after, was one of the key leaders in Israel's history. So Samuel was one of the stabilizing figures. He was a prophet. He was a priest. He was one of those people that really stepped in to provide, kind of, bridge the season of the judges into the season of the kings in Israel's history. And so he had tried to mentor Saul. He had anointed David as king. And here, finally, he dies. And it's a significant moment in Israel's history, right? This is one of Israel's great leaders, one of his greatest leaders, even. And at this point, he is dying. The whole country is gathered together for a nationwide kind of ceremony of grief. And the narrator is also setting up for us a very unexpected appearance by Samuel. Also, later in the narrative, he's dying here, but we're going to see him again in a few more chapters. And so it's important for the narrator to insert this little piece of information in there so we know where we're at in the story. So enough about Samuel, verse two through three, introduce us briefly to this fabulously wealthy husband and his beautiful wife. So we read in verse 25, in verse two. And there was a man in my own whose business was in Carmel. The man was very rich. He had 3,000 sheep and a thousand goats. He was sharing his sheep in Carmel. Now, the name of the man was Naval in the name of his wife, Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved. So in verse two, we're given this guy's name, but we learned, we aren't given his name in verse two, but we learned that he's a very wealthy man of business. A man with enormous herds of sheep and of goats, and there's 3,000 sheep that he is just about to share, and he is just about to turn an enormous profit. Now, living today in an agrarian society, you might not be able to appreciate what this moment would have looked like for the people living in this community. Of course, the entire regional economy, what about sheep and shepherds? And this is the big moment, just like a giant harvest for farmers living out in like a farming community. If you're living in an area where they're raising sheep and it's the sheep shearing time, that means that they're about to shear all of that wool after all of those sheep and they're off to be able to sell all of that wool out to market. And it is going to be a massive community celebration. A massive amount of wealth is being produced, and everyone in the community would be able to celebrate. There'd be a massive party, and everybody would be invited. It would be classic, Middle Eastern hospitality. So this is a wonderful moment here for everyone in this community. This fabulously wealthy man is about to cash in a very large amount of wealth, and the whole community, of course, is going to celebrate and benefit from it. It's a good time for David to show up, but in verse three gives us an important clue about the story, as we just read here. Now the name of the man was "Nable," and the name of his wife, Sabego, the woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved. The narrator is going to contrast this beautiful and discerning woman we're going to learn more about in a few minutes with her harsh and badly behaved husband, and that's going to help shape this story as it plays out. So having set up the story, the narrator sets the story in motion by telling us that David heard about the sheep shearing, that there was going to be a massive party, that this was a favorable moment for him to come and seek for a little help from a distant kinsman. We learn that "Nable" is a kilobyte, so he was from the tribe of Judah, he would have been a distant relation of David's, and so David, in verse five, sent ten young men to play, greet this man, greet him with a traditional ancient Near Eastern greeting of peace, ask for whatever they might have on hand. It's a very polite, courteous sort of request, fitting with ancient Near Eastern hospitality protocols, and "Nable" certainly had the abundance to be able to bless his kinsman at this moment in very concrete ways, even though David had 600 men, which is a significant amount of people to bless, but we know this man has thousands of sheep and goats, his fabulously wealthy is able to do whatever he wants. So the moment is set, it's a beautiful moment, David is coming with a very reasonable express, "What could go wrong?" But we know, of course, "Nable," his character, his personality, we know where this story is going, it's going downhill very quickly, right? We get "Nables" abrupt response in verses 10 through 12, let me pick up the story for you there, and "Nable" answer, David's servants, who is David? Who is this son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are pricking away from their masters. "Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shears and give it to men who have come from I do not know where?" So David's young man turned away and came back and told him all this thing, and so we get "Nables" very short and abrupt response. He snubs, David's emissaries, questions, David's character and insults David's men, all in a mere two, three verses. He doesn't give them the time of day, his rudeness would have been a breach of ancient Near Eastern hospitality. It was rude to snub a distant, Cain's minute lacks any awareness, maybe of what God might be doing in this situation. And the proliferation of first-person pronouns in verse 11 cues us in to this man's frame of reverence. Did you notice how often he uses the word "I" or "My" in verse 11, seven or eight times? Right, here's a man consumed with himself. Today we'd probably call him a narcissist, right? It's all about my sheep and my clocks and my property, and I'm not going to give you any of it. "Nable" is the living embodiment of a fool, as we will see from his servant's response in verse 17. His servant says this, "He's such a worthless man. No one can speak to him." Imagine, those are your employees. This guy is so worthless, no one can even speak to him, and even worse, his wife in verse 25. Let not my Lord regard this worthless fellow, "Nable," for as his name is, so he is, "Nable" his name in folly is with him. So of course the word itself is the word for fool, and so his name seems to fit the character. We're starting to learn a little bit more about this man. Here is Mr. Fool acting like a fool, and of course this story is going to unfold. From here David's response is equally abrupt and equally abrasive. Here we see in verse 13, notice the way David says this, and David said to his men, every man of you strap on his sword, and every man of them strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword. There's a lot of mentions of swords here in three verses here. Violence is intended for these men, and about 400 men went up after David while 200 remained with the baggage. So you see where this is going, right? David has insulted David's man. David is ready for a fight. He's spoiling for a fight. He's angry. We learn in verse 22 that he is intent to wipe out every male belonging to Nable. In the Hebrew it's interesting for every male, the ESV kind of covers it over a little bit. I could only find one translation that actually captured the original here, and it's the Geneva translation, which I think I have up on the screen, which just gives you a little bit of the colorful translation here. For Samuel 25, 22, so and more do God into the enemies of David. For surely I will not leave all that he hath by the dawning of the day and any that pisseth against the wall. So it's a little bit more graphic here. David is kind of like, you know, you could just say it every male, or you could say every man that pisseth against the wall. I mean, if you really are ready to insult somebody, and so just gives you a little bit of the flavor here. This is a little crass. It's a little locker room talk. There are swords. You know, there's some slang going here, but it's about to go down. And before, I mean, so, and I should say too, I mean, when you have two male egos right being provoked, like, you know, we could kind of see where this situation is going. But before we pick up the story, I think it's worth pausing to consider just how dangerous this kind of foolishness is, especially in our culture, so prone to outrage and increasingly violence, right? We see this all around us, a lot of foolishness, a lot of people just reacting to things they don't disagree with, shooting off their mouth on Twitter, or, you know, whatever the situation is. We've seen violence in our political dialogue and discourse. I mean, it's just been insane to think that, you know, one of our presidential candidates was almost shot like assassinated. Like, we're living in a crazy world right now, and there are a lot of people that are just reacting. And so I thought it's really important for us to just pause here a minute to think, how do we de-escalate maybe some of the foolishness around us, the world we're living in? Maybe you know somebody in your life like Nabal, who, his servant, say, nobody listened to that guy. You know anybody? That guy, nobody listens to him. He doesn't listen to anybody. He's just an idiot, right? There were people like that, and if you can't listen, if you can't learn, if you can't grow, you're never going to mature, right? That's the biblical definition of a fool, somebody that doesn't listen to anyone else, somebody that doesn't take feedback, that doesn't take criticism, that doesn't take advice. That's the definition of a fool which begs the question for us as Christians, right? Are we approachable? Are we like Nabal? I'm not listening to anybody. Or are we people that are approachable? Are we teachable? Are we people that can learn and grow and continue to mature? That is vitally important in a cultural context where we live, in a situation where we find ourselves, that we aren't just reactionary, incendiary sort of people. So how would you know if you were a Nabal, right? Usually people aren't just going to tell you. This guy's a fool, man. People will often keep those opinions to themselves. Sometimes you actually just have to ask. And so here's a question if you just are wondering like maybe about my self-awareness here. You could flip back to that. How would you know if you're being enabled, right? As someone you trust, how are you experiencing me? And listen, this is the key part without defensiveness or dismissiveness. Just ask, how are you experiencing me? What are you seeing from my life and reaction? And then just sit back and listen. That's the hard part, right? To actually talk to your wife, talk to your roommate, talk to your like, how am I coming across to you? Because fools are people that just, they don't even know, right? What other people are thinking, how other people are understanding them, perceiving them. And we need to be the kind of people, right, who lives are an open book. Who people can talk to, so we can learn, so we can grow, so we can mature into the people that God is calling us to be. I mean, we also could ask, of course, as of David is, am I an angry person, right? Am I easily triggered? Do I have a short fuse? Am I a hothead? Do I tend to overreact to circumstances and situations? Do I resort with violence or raising my voice when things don't go my way? These gritty, old testament stories bring out the best and worst in human nature and we're meant to wrestle with that in our own lives. And so if you struggle with some of those things, listen on as this story unfolds because God in His great mercy is going to intervene in the lives of these two men in some beautiful ways. So, Nable has played the fool, David, the hothead, and the story is about to spin out of control if someone doesn't intervene quickly. Fortunately for everyone involved, God has just the person in place and that person is, of course, this wonderful figure Abigail in verse 14 through 19. Let me pick up the story for you, but one of the young men told Abigail, Nable's wife, the whole David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master and he railed at them. Yet the men were very good to us and we suffered no harm and we did not miss anything when we were in the fields as long as we went with them. They rolled walled to us both night and by day all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. Now therefore know this and consider that you should do for harm is determined against our master and against all his house and he is such a worthless person that no one could speak to him. Then Abigail made haste, took 200 loaves, two skins of wine, five sheep already prepared and five seas of parched grain, 100 clusters of raisins, 200 cakes of figs and laid them on donkeys. And then he said to the young men, go on before me, behold, I come after you but she did not tell her husband, Nable. Abigail finds out from her servant about David's care for her husband's flocks, her husband's rash response and the danger they are all in because they have offended David. She processes this information and immediately sends a generous portion of foodhead in a revealing note by the narrator in verse 19 she did not tell her husband, right? A potentially dangerous thing to do in those days as her husband had just said I'm not sending this guy anything but like the servant she realizes that this is a foolish man and she's going to do what she needs to do to protect the lives of everyone involved. Right? She's being a good wife. When her husband is acting like an idiot she is willing to take the necessary arrangements to make sure to cover over some of his foolish decisions. So she sends a generous peace offering ahead then goes to meet David in person as a mediator and her conversation with David is worth reading in its entirety because it is a master class on how to deal with people, how to deescalate conflict and how to save many lives. It's actually the longest speech by a woman in the entire Bible and it is a beautiful speech. I could spend the whole sermon just on these verses but I'm going to restrain myself to simply ten comments on her speech which was hard to narrow it down to that many. But let me read this speech first and then we'll get into some of the observations. When Abigail saw David she turned and got down from the donkey and fell before David on her face and bowed to the ground. She fell in his feet and said, "On me alone, my Lord, be the guilt. Please let your servant speak in your ears and hear the words of your servant. Let not my Lord regard this worthless fellow navel. For as his name is, so he is navel is his name and folly is with him. But I, your servant, did not see the young men of my Lord whom you sent. Now then my Lord, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives because the Lord has restrained you from blood gill and from saving with your own hand, now then let your enemies and those who seek due to evil to my Lord be as navel. And now let this present that your servant has brought to my Lord be given to the young men who follow my Lord. Please forgive the trespass of your servant, for the Lord will certainly make my Lord a sure house because my Lord is fighting the battles of the Lord. And evil shall not be found in you as long as you live. 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 bundle of the living in the care of the Lord your God. And the lives your enemies shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling. And when the Lord is done to my Lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you, and appointed you prince over Israel, my Lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience, for having shed blood without cause for my Lord working salvation or for my Lord working salvation for himself. And when the Lord is dealt well with my Lord, then remember your servant. That is the definition of a wise and discerning wife approaching a situation that is on its way to catastrophe. And I told you I have 10 observations from this speech. I limited myself to 10. And so just notice a few things. Notice first her posture in verse 23, she comes alone and unarmed to a group of 400 men who are intent on violence. Like, takes an incredible amount of courage and bravery just as some of this goes. She's putting herself in between all of her family, all of her society. She's putting herself between 400 armed men and the rest of her family. That's a pretty remarkable thing. And she comes before she says even a word. She bows to the ground in verse 23. And then in verses 24, she takes the guilt on herself without excusing her husband. It's pretty remarkable. She's just like, it's amazing what she says in verse 24. I love how she picks this up here. Please let your servant speak or in verse 25. Let my Lord regard this. Oh, where am I at here? This is verse 24. "On me alone, my Lord be the guilt." Interesting, right? She hasn't done anything wrong in this situation. But she's willing to say, "Hey, take the guilt on me. I want to deescalate this situation. I'm not going to excuse my husband. We all know he's a fool and he's an idiot." She's like, "If I had been there and intercepted those 10 servants, I would have, of course, given you the food you needed." And we wouldn't be in this situation. So she's willing to kind of take the guilt on herself without excusing her foolish husband. Notice also in verse 26 that she sees herself by the means which God will rescue David from blood guilt and definition to save by his own hand. She actually says, "I've saved you, David, from killing all these men." She comes in very presumptuously as it were and saying, "Isn't it so great that I came and saved you from killing these men and from saving with your own hand?" Even though that hasn't happened yet, she's essentially speaking it into reality and saying, "Look, I'm here to rescue you and save you from yourself." And what's remarkable in this speech is she actually invokes God's name seven times in this story. God's covenant name, Yahweh. Over and over and over again, she sees herself as an emissary of God himself stepping in to rescue David in this circumstance. Number four, here she writes, "Nable's wrong by providing abundant food." Obviously, Nable's like, "I'm not giving you anything." She comes with a massive, massive feast that would feed all of David's men. She's going to provide abundantly over and beyond to provide for the foolishness of Nable. Number five, she asks forgiveness. Again, she didn't do anything wrong, but she's still willing to take this on herself in terms of de-escalating. She's like, "Forgive me for missing out on these men. I will make this situation right." Which is amazing. It's powerful. It's something she didn't have to do but something she did do and was able to de-escalate an amazingly intense situation. On to number six here, she confidently asserts that God will make David an enduring dynasty. If we remember back in chapter 16, God promised David will be anointed king. Other characters along the way, Jonathan and Saul have said, "David, you're going to be king. Here she is reminding him yet again of the truth. Like God is going to make you king. You don't have to take this in your own hand. You don't have to go slaughter a bunch of people. God is going to make you king. Be patient. Wait for God's timing. It's a beautiful reminder of what God's going to do. And it anticipates God's promise that God will build him a house in the Davidic Covenant. In the second Samuel 7, she's already anticipating the dynasty that David is going to be a part of. She assures David that his life is in the Lord's hands and that his enemies will be defeated in one of the most beautiful expressions we see there in verse 29. I'll let me read that for you quickly. If men rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my Lord shall be bound up in the bundle of the living in the care of the Lord your God. In the lives of your enemies, he will sling out from the hollow of a sling. Isn't that an interesting line in there? David of course had defeated Goliath famously with a sling. And she's saying your enemies are going to be slung out someone out of a sling here. And of course being brought into this bundle, living bundle of the care of the Lord, is commentator's debate about that expression. One of the commentators mentioned that it was like being put safely into a little shepherd's little stone, a little bag of stones, and he'd keep by his side here. If it's the same metaphor, he's following that same metaphor. She's using shepherding language. She's married to a guy who owns a lot of sheep. She's talking to a guy that was the most famous shepherd in Israel using shepherd language to show how secure, how safe David is and how far his enemies will be flung away. It's a beautiful expression to David that the Lord is with him. He's got him. He's with him through this situation. Number eight, she reminds him that he will be king explicitly in verse 30. You will be prince of Israel. So don't freak out here. She protects him from regret. Like I don't want you to have pangs of regret. I don't want you to have all this on your conscience. She is protecting him. And finally, and of course lastly, she asked him to remember her, right? In verse 31, which is kind of the way you want to do that, right? You're putting forward this other person at the end. She's like, "By the way, if you get a chance to take care of me as well, I'm married to a fool." And that's kind of a tough place to be in life. And so if you could remember me, I don't know how this is all going to play out, but you know, I'm kind of hoping that maybe there's a better hope for me at some point in my life here. And this is a remarkable woman, right? In a remarkably difficult position, doing a remarkable job of saving both her foolish husband, at least for the moment, and her hot-headed future king. I mean, what remarkable skills to step into a situation with that, to respond immediately on the dot before anyone gets killed to de-escalate a situation that was surely going to result in much bloodshed. Thank God for the discerning women in my life, particularly my wife, who has walked with me through many such situations. I've needed more than a few interventions in my time, and I'll let Jamie tell some of those stories rather than entirely embarrassing myself. But I did have a funny story. I thought I'd bring from Tim Keller from the meaning of marriage. There's a lovely story of intervention in that story. Tim, as a church planner, some of you guys know, church planning is very intense. The first couple of years, Tim had gotten himself into church planning. The first couple of years just totally, you know, went all-in church planning and was dealing with some workaholic tendencies. They were trying to work it through that in their marriage, but Tim wasn't really listening. It just kind of got sucked in. So he came home one day from work and found his wife out on the patio with a hammer, taking a hammer to their wedding china, just methodically smashing one piece at a time. And Tim is just like, "Oh my gosh, she's had a nervous breakdown. Like, do we need an institutionalizer? What's going on?" And she just told him, "Look, what you're doing to our marriage is what I'm doing to our wedding china. Okay, you were destroying it by overworking. You've got into this church plan. Your whole life is in this church plan. And our marriage is suffering because of it. And she had to do something traumatic. She had to do something pictorial to get his attention. And so I don't have a story quite that dramatic, but at least that I can remember. But if you ask Jamie, at least if you ask Jamie, there may be a few of them that all come out there. But we desperately need wives like Abigail who are wise and resourceful enough to intervene when we husbands lose our minds or just being stupid. I mean, that's just a reality for men in a fallen world. We need women who are willing to remind us who God is and what he is doing. And when we're ready to cut corners, when we're ready to act impulsively, we need wise women around us to step in as mediators. And so an interesting question may be to consider if we just pause for a moment. Where have you had to intervene in the life of someone you love? Have you ever had to be in Abigail's position to do an intervention in someone's life? Because of, I don't know, it's workaholism, alcoholism. Somebody's about to have a divorce. You know, you know the situations, right? That happen where interventions, have you ever been in those sorts of positions? Or maybe where someone intervened in your life? Maybe you're here at church today because someone graciously intervened in your life at some point and you're like, man, I've got to thank God for the people that stepped in in these crucial moments to intervene. And when done with wisdom and discernment, as Abigail does right, these interventions can be a tremendous grace of God in our lives. And I hope as a church we can see that, both from those of us in need of interventions and those of us maybe that have to be a part of those, that we'd see them as a grace of God. They're a normal part of what it means to be rescuing people, living in a fallen world, in a broken world. We need help, we need intervention, we need grace, and we need wise and discerning people to step into that. Unfortunately, God has provided them, and hopefully many more in this church, to step into those difficult and challenging situations and seasons. So Abigail's daring intervention saves both her husband's life for the moment and David from committing a grave sin. How is David going to respond to this intervention? Right? We know where he was back in the beginning of the chapter, right? He was angry, he was ready to pull his sword out and kill everybody in sight. But we're going to see a change here in David. David, I want you to see is a king learning to wait for God's salvation. David is a king in the making here, another way to say that. God is doing something in his life, making this king into the kind of person he wants him to be. And so we pick up the story again here, man, I've got to speed it up here, in verse 32 through 35. And David said to Abigail, "Bless be the Lord the God of Israel sent you this day to meet me. Blessed be your discretion. Blessed be you who have kept me this day from blood guilt and from working salvation with my own hands. For as surely as the Lord the God of Israel lives who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you would hurry and come to meet me truly by mourning, there would have been nothing left enabled so much as one male." Then David received from her hand what she had brought him and he said to her, "Go in peace to your house. See I have obeyed your voice and I have granted your petition." David's – or Abigail's intervention turns David's anger to blessing, right? There's a threefold blessing in David's response. He recognizes her wise and courageous intervention as nothing short of the intervention of God himself. Isn't that beautiful? In verse 32, "Bless be the Lord the God of Israel who sent you this day to meet me." He receives Abigail as the very voice of God, the words of God in his life. And without this intervention, David, we know where the story is going. He's going to take revenge. He receives the treatment she rescued him from blood guilt and crucially from saving with his own hand. That's the lesson David has been learning over these last few chapters. David wants to take matters into his own hands. The people around him wanted to take matters into his own hands in Mark's text last week, right? You know, they have Saul, right, cornered. They could finally kill him. And as men are like, "Why don't you kill Saul? He's our enemy." David passes the test there with flying colors. But this week with Nabol, this guy who's not the anointed king, he's like, "Man, off of his head, I'm killing him." But, yeah, God is working on David and he's beginning to soften his heart and beginning to call him away from these kind of violent sort of responses. He's going to see again next week. Of course, David has never another chance to kill Saul, but he's learning slowly to be the kind of king God is calling to be a king waiting for God's salvation, not taking matters into his own hands, not shedding innocent blood. He's learning to trust God. And that's something, a lesson we all need to learn over and over and over and over again in our lives. But the beautiful thing about David is he's able to learn, right? He's able to receive things from God, naval and Saul, right? Those guys, right, they never learn. They're never able to receive the intervention God has in their lives, right? And their narrative we know is on a downward trajectory spiraling down into death and destruction. But David's story, right, there's hope in David's story because he's able to repent. He's able to listen. He's able to receive God's intervention in his life. I love how pastor and commentator Dale Roth Davis sums this up. He says the text teaches us, and I thought this was so good, how Yahweh rescues his servants from their own stupidity. Isn't that great? How he restrains them from executing their simple purposes, how sometimes he graciously, infirmally intercepts us on the road to folly, right? That's so often our lives. He goes on to say, what mercy sends frustration or purposes? What kindness builds hindrances in our paths? It is important that like David, we respond rightly to such episodes of Yahweh's restraining providence, we could hardly do better than to worship with David's own words. Blessed be the Lord who has kept back his servant from wrongdoing. And so we've got a beautiful response, right, to the grace of God. God's intervening grace in the life of this man. In this case, David doesn't have to wait long to see God's justice in salvation. Verse 36 to 38, we see how this story plays out here. I won't read it. You can read it on your own. But he only has to wait ten days, right, for God's judgment to fall, a navel. When navel recovers from his hangover, from his big party the night before, and Abigail, you know, gives him the news, man. He just like has like, you know, most common to respect, prior to stroke. I mean, he's so the terror of what he just missed, like totally freaks him out. You know, he's done, and the text says the Lord struck him down, right, ten days later, his life is over. And David learns an important lesson. God can take care of issues of justice and revenge. David doesn't have to take matters into his own hands. And one last point, I know I got to land the plane here, but there's so much in this text. I'm skipping the application question there. The story even appears to have a happy ending with David getting the girl. But the narrative is actually foreshadowing a darker theme in David's life. And so we see here in 39 through 42, I'll read this text quickly and just want to give a few comments on it. I had heard that Nabal was dead. He said, "Bless be the Lord, who has avenged the insult I received, the hand of Nabal, and has kept back his servant from wrongdoing. The Lord has returned the evil of Nabal on his own head." Then David sent and spoke to Abigail, took her as his wife. When the servants of David came to Abigail at Carmel, they said to her, "David has sent us to you to take you as his wife." And she rose and bowed with her head to the ground and said, "Behold, your handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my Lord." And Abigail hurried and rose and mounted a donkey and her five young women attended her. She followed the messages of David and became his wife. David also took Anne Nolam of Jezreel, and both of them became his wife. Saul had given Michael, his daughter David's wife, to Paul T, the son of Lesch, who was in Galim. And so it looks like in this story that it's a beautiful happy ending. Crisis averted, the bad guy dies, and David gets the girl in the end. But I want to mention a few things here that are happening in this text that maybe would give us cause for concern. The last two verses revealed this is not the whole story. This isn't David's only wife. In fact, it's actually his third wife here. Michael, his first wife, the daughter of Saul was given to another man once he ran off into the wilderness. He's married this other woman, Nolam, which is mentioned almost like a property acquisition here. Not a whole lot said about this situation. Now he's got this third wife, and we're going to have to wait until 2nd Samuel to see just how much family drama polygamy creates here. But the seeds are being sown in these early chapters. David is arguably the most dysfunctional family in the whole Bible, which leads to all kinds of violence, abuse, and dysfunction. It's going to be a very messy situation. And David's fatal attraction to beautiful women will lead him to the lowest point in his entire life, and an even more famous intervention by the prophet Nathan in 2nd Samuel 12. So this story here, while seemingly having a happy ending, actually sets up a whole other narrative where David's going to need even more intervention in his life. Polygamy, while never expressly condemned in the Old Testament, is a deviation from God's original design in Genesis 2, and always creates drama and heartache in every biblical story without fail. And in the New Testament, Jesus, of course, reminds his listeners of God's original design in Genesis 2, and Paul bars anyone with more than one wife for any leadership position in the church whatsoever. So needless to say, the Bible does not have a high view of polygamy. Even though it's in these stories, it was part of the ancient Near Eastern culture. It was very common across every culture for that to be the case. The Bible takes a different perspective and upholds the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman for life. The ultimate love story, the ultimate romance here in our biblical narrative. And so, let me finally, as I said, land the plain here. As we step back and look at the bigger story for Samuel, we can see as Abigail reminds David that God is building a sure house and that God will establish him as king. That's what's happening in 1st and 2nd Samuel was seeing David come to that place. These wilderness lessons are forming him into the king after God's own heart. Even with his flaws, he will be the king. Every other king will be measured against in the rest of the narrative of Samuel and the kings. But as we step back and look at the even bigger story of the Bible, we can see a foreshadowing of David's greater descendant who will perform the ultimate intervention coming from heaven to earth to seek and save the lost. We see foreshadowing of a greater mediator that will stand between God and sinful man. We can see foreshadowings of the one who ultimately save us from blood guilt through his death on the cross. We see the one who will fight our battles for us and defeat our greater enemies of sin, death and Satan. We see the one who will ultimately bind us in the bundle of the living care of the Lord our God. That's where this story, the resonances in us are taking us to a greater hero who will win greater battles for God's people. He loves to rescue people right in the midst of her folly. He's able to rescue hotheaded kings from taking vengeance and he's able to raise up for himself wise and discerning wives like Abigail. That's the kind of God we love and serve this morning. In conclusion, I just want to maybe use the three characters maybe as a way for you to think about maybe applying this text. Who are the naples in your life? Who are those people around that just drive you absolutely nuts? What would it look like to entrust them to God and wait for his salvation and not take matters into your own hands? David, right? Who are the Abigail's in your life? Who is God brought into your life in the perfect moment to save you from making really big mistakes, really doing really stupid things? Thank God for those wonderful people who intervene with God's grace. Who do you know and love maybe that's need of an intervention this morning? Right now, who is God putting on your, maybe where you need to step in and serve them? Or if you want to go a little deeper, you could kind of think about your own story here. Are you in a hard-hearted place like navel right now? Are you the one in need of God's intervening grace? Right? Are you in a place like David just needing God to come and intervene in your life? Jesus wants to meet us this morning with his intervening grace and a minor stress to through, to and through this community that he's brought alongside. So don't leave this morning without doing business with Jesus if you need his intervening grace. And don't leave without talking to somebody if you need somebody to intervene in your life. Or you just need help walking through really difficult, challenging situations and seasons. And you're like, man, I don't know if I have the wisdom of Abigail to step into some of the different situations and circumstances that we find. So let me pray that God might meet us here this morning and provide all that we need. Father, I thank you so much for this text for these beautiful stories in the Old Testament that show both the brokenness of human nature and all of its grittiness and all of its realism, but also these incredible characters like Abigail who step up in such beautiful ways to show your intervening grace in the lives of people that need it. Would there be many in this church who would receive that intervening grace in their lives through the people of this church? God, would you make us the kind of people like Abigail that can step into difficult and challenging circumstances with your grace? Pray for anybody here this morning that's just in need of intervention, God, that they're here not by accident but on purpose. You brought them here this morning because they needed a jolt, they needed a wake-up call like David, they needed someone to kind of grab them by the shoulders and just wake them up. I pray God that they would be able to meet with you this morning, would experience your grace and your work in their lives and they wouldn't walk away the same as they came in this morning. So we thank you for this time, this sermon, this word, would you use it in all the ways you have intended to bless your people here. I'm Brad on Jesus' Name. Amen.