David and Abigail

Chapter 25 opens, in verse 1, with the news of Samuel’s death. At God’s command he had anointed both Saul and David as king, and in place of the lazy and slothful Eli he had led the people to God; now Samuel was called by God and departed this life. He was a great prophet, like a father to the people of Israel. The great prophets, too, who heard the word directly from God and obeyed it, were human, and like Samuel they all passed away. What differs is the choices they made while they lived and the life that resulted; but no human being can live on earth forever, and so the moment we shed this flesh, our life here is over.

In our own day, too, people who were held in honor are passing away, and many mourn their passing. However many times the wheel of the years turns, the shape of life does not change. It is hardly different from the people of Israel gathering in one place to lament Samuel when he died. Whether one lives by faith in God or lives for oneself in the world, every life ends in death.

We are all running toward death, and only those who care what kind of life awaits them after death can prepare for it in this life. We who know what place awaits us after death must therefore live all the more patiently in faith, giving thanks in all things. Though the world does not believe that Christ alone is the way, the truth, and the life, those of us who know that truth must live for Christ alone; only then will our death be beautiful, like Samuel’s. The people who had come to hope for heaven through Samuel must have shed many tears as they watched him die; and seeing Samuel, who had given himself to leading them into that hope, running toward his embrace, God would have opened his arms wide and held him. Samuel, so blessed, would not have feared death. Having fulfilled his calling, he would have had no lingering attachment to this life, and with God’s radiant face before him, his steps toward heaven must have been light. We should pray that our own last moments will be as beautiful as this.

But rather than giving ourselves as Samuel did, we have far too many excuses. We are too busy with the affairs of the world to have time to serve, and we feel no need to be faithful at the cost of ourselves, so we hold back. We know the word well enough and we go to church, and that gives us such a firm sense that we believe in God that we cannot break through that wall. We give no more of our time, no more of our means, and we are never faithful beyond our strength, because we live our faith within lines we have drawn for ourselves. To be sure, such behavior may in a way look rational and level-headed; but because God put his own Son to death for people like this, he withholds his grace from those who put themselves first and will not give themselves to him.

Friends, when the sea is calm, you cannot clearly tell the difference between a ship built well with skill and craftsmanship and one thrown together with neither. But when a great storm comes, the well-built ship shows its true worth. When the storms of life blow hard, those who have grown strong in God’s word and in faith will surely shine like jewels. Just as God had Noah build the ark, we must labor every day to coat the ship of faith with wild honey, so that it can carry many souls.

Wisdom is not something the knowledge of this world can give us. Nor can understanding be displayed through such knowledge; it shines only when we strive to show in our lives, by faith and patience, the wisdom God has given us. Someone who receives wisdom but lacks understanding is no different from one who has no wisdom at all. You have, I expect, received wisdom from God. If so, you must know how to use that wisdom with understanding; only then will God receive glory through you, and your own life will be at peace.

When her husband’s folly was about to bring the household to ruin, there was a woman who, like a well-built ship that rides out the storm, saved her home with wisdom and understanding. She was Abigail, who later became David’s wife.

In verse 14, one of the young men came hurrying to Abigail, Nabal’s wife. David had sent messengers to greet her husband Nabal, he said, and Nabal had insulted them and driven them away. Nabal was one of the wealthiest men of his day, with three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. In Israel, the day of shearing sheep was kept as a festival, and it was the custom for many people to gather and enjoy wine, meat, and bread together. Nabal too prepared a great deal of bread and meat and held a feast on his shearing day. In those days shepherds often suffered at the hands of evil men, who carried off their sheep and goats and took their grain. Yet Nabal, through days of strangely unbroken peace, kept piling up wealth without losing a single sheep.

It was on this feast day that the men David sent came to Nabal. When they asked him to share some bread and meat, Nabal flew into a rage and sent them away with a rebuke: who was David, that he should ask Nabal for bread and meat? David, on the run from Saul, was camped beside Nabal, and that is why the Philistines could not attack Nabal even if they wanted to. Nabal clearly knew that he was safe because David was camped nearby, and yet he refused David’s request. As Nabal reckoned it, David was camped nearby only because Saul had driven him there; whatever Nabal had gained by it was no deliberate kindness from David, and therefore he owed no thanks.

This reasoning shows plainly how little wisdom Nabal had. The world is full of fools like Nabal. A great many people fail to give thanks not because they do not know the kindness they have received, but because giving thanks would mean sharing what is theirs. Sharing his provisions with David would have brought Nabal far more blessing in return, yet he lost everything because he could see nothing but the little he would have to hand over now. Having been guaranteed a peaceful life, safe from the savage Philistines, he ought naturally to have repaid David; but he flatly refused, because to him David’s holding back the Philistines was only to be expected, and what he owned belonged to him alone. This Nabal is a picture of us. The Lord sacrificed himself for us to the point of pouring out water and blood, he protects us from the savage Satan, and he keeps and leads us by the Holy Spirit; yet like Nabal, we do not give thanks. If the Lord were not with us, Satan would have attacked us at once, just as the Philistines would have attacked Nabal.

Just as Nabal told David he would never give him his bread, his water, or his sheep, we too tell the Lord that we cannot give him our abilities, our time, or our money. Just as Nabal would not admit that his possessions had grown because of David, we will not admit that our life is at peace because the Lord has blessed us. It is not that we deny what Jesus has done; but we refuse to give ourselves, saying we are doing well because we worked hard and because we are capable. Our faith, not yet born again, wears Nabal’s very face. Nabal had not minded David’s presence while David kept his property safe; but the moment David asked for help, he suddenly became a burden, and Nabal belittled and mocked him as a runaway servant.

We too are deeply moved and overjoyed by the promise that Jesus, after preparing a place for his children, will come again and bless us to live with God forever. But when God asks us for our time, our service, and our means, we flatly refuse, asking when the Lord ever helped us, and declare that we can never share anything with him. I hope you will not begrudge what you give to God. For Scripture records that when God’s people gave themselves, he blessed not only their whole lives but even the life to come.

Proverbs 3:5-10 says that if we trust in Yahweh with all our heart, do not lean on human understanding, and acknowledge him in all our ways, he will lead us on a safe path through the dark roads of life. If you are not wise in your own eyes, but fear Yahweh and depart from evil, he will make you prosper. My hope is that you will honor Yahweh with your wealth and with the first fruits of your increase. Then your barns will be filled to overflowing. This is not something I am saying; it is God’s promise, for God himself has promised that when you give with a grateful heart, he will fill you to overflowing. When people obtain what they longed for, they want to keep all of it. In times of trouble they vow to serve God well if only he will solve this one thing, and then, once the answer comes, they break their own promise. That is why I tell you to give thanks in all things: only those who give true thanks can bring God their first fruits.

If Nabal had acknowledged that he had been spared Philistine attack because of David’s protection, and had helped David to get by, he would have received even more help later when David became king. People suffer greater hardship because they see only what is right in front of them. Had Nabal known that the David he mocked and despised as a runaway servant would one day be a great king, he probably would not have acted this way. If God had not taken Nabal’s life, he would have knelt before David on his way to the palace, like the groveling Shimei, and begged to be spared.

When David heard that Nabal had mocked him and refused to share any food, he was furious. In his anger he armed four hundred of his men with swords and set out to attack the stingy Nabal. Once David arrived, not one person in Nabal’s household would be left alive. Had Nabal had a thankful heart, David would have repaid that small gratitude with gratitude far greater, and would have protected not only his property but his whole family. Hard-hearted people like Nabal come under judgment because they cannot share even a little. Have you ever counted the blessings God has given you? You will find that grace no money can buy fills your life to overflowing. May you always look for reasons to give thanks, and offer your heart to God.

Where Nabal blundered, Abigail saved her household by spiritual wisdom. She wisely headed off the trouble that had come upon her house, escaped the crisis, and later became the wife of King David. Through Abigail’s words we learn how richly a single word from someone who knows true gratitude can fill their life with blessing. Abigail had not known of her husband’s foolish behavior. Just then, hearing from a servant that David was coming in a rage to kill Nabal, she hurriedly gathered provisions without her husband’s knowledge, loaded them at once on donkeys, and sent them to David. She knew that David had been a wall around them, keeping the foreigners from attacking, and so she prepared them with great care. Then she knelt humbly before David as he came on in anger, spoke of her husband’s wrong and of how grateful she was, and begged for his favor.

1 Samuel 25:28

28Please forgive the trespass of your servant. For Yahweh will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord fights Yahweh’s battles. Evil will not be found in you all your days.

She said that the blame for not meeting the men David had sent lay with her. Abigail moved David’s heart with an argument from faith that he could not refute. She was a wise woman who, by holding up David as God saw him, made his anger subside. In a desperate moment when her whole family could have been wiped out, Abigail showed great presence of mind, and her wisdom saved the lives of her entire household.

In verses 28-30 Abigail said something very important. She prophesied that God would firmly establish David’s house so that it would never fall, that God would bind David in the bundle of life and protect him so that his enemies could not harm him, and that he would become prince over Israel. By seeing through spiritual power what God would do in the distant future, and speaking it aloud, Abigail moved David’s heart. This clearly shows that Abigail was a woman of prayer, one who was always full of the Holy Spirit and rightly understood the word of God. Those who are full of the Holy Spirit may go largely unnoticed in ordinary times, but when trouble strikes the home, the church, or the nation, they stand at the center of the solution. If you, like Abigail, watch in humility with spiritual eyes for the work of God, he will cause you to save lives with ever greater wisdom.

When David had heard all that Abigail had to say, he blessed Yahweh, the God of Israel, who had sent her that day to meet him. When God’s children live wisely as Abigail did, people will exalt God and give him glory. All the years she had lived as Nabal’s wife, she must have suffered spiritually. Watching her husband cast aside God’s grace and chase only after worldly gain, Abigail would have been deeply grieved. But God had sent Abigail into Nabal’s household for exactly such a day as this, for without her, Nabal’s whole house would have been wiped out. Because she had guarded her home in prayer, God helped her meet the crisis with wisdom. If there is just one person who, like Abigail, looks to God alone and prays, that home, that church, and that nation will find no end of opportunities for blessing.

There is something I very much want to say to you all. If you are anxious for your home, your church, and your nation, you yourself must first stand firm in faith. If you, one person, stand upright, God will not abandon the home, church, and nation you belong to, and he will protect them through your prayers. But if those entrusted with so weighty a calling do not pray, but worry, complain, and grow spiritually idle, their homes, churches, and nation will suffer hardship.

When Moses alone stood firm, Israel was saved; when Jesus alone bore the cross, all humanity could stand on the way of salvation. If you, one person, stand upright before God, the home, church, and nation you worry about will be blessed. When God entrusts you with a problem like Abigail’s, I hope you will examine yourself to see whether you can resolve it with spiritual wisdom as she did.

After calming David, Abigail returned to Nabal. Nabal was holding a great feast like a king’s and was drunk. Seeing her husband in that state, she said nothing and waited until morning. Nabal, drunk on strong drink, learned the whole story only in the morning. He must have thought he would always live like a king; but when God took his life, everything he owned passed to others. We must remember that the end of those who belong to the flesh is death. After Nabal died, David sent for the wise and discerning Abigail and took her as his wife. No longer the wife of proud and greedy Nabal, she became a queen, the rightful wife of King David. As David’s wife, Abigail came to be honored by all the people, and with a husband who revered God she built a household that was whole.

In the same way, when Satan, who once played the husband in our hearts, died there and we came to serve Christ as our bridegroom, we became the bride of Christ, the King of kings, just as Abigail became a queen. At this very hour the Lord is asking every soul to become his bride, as David asked Abigail to be his wife: asking us to give and receive a love that will never change, and to live together with him in heaven. How magnificent will the King’s wedding feast be? Those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will celebrate the wedding feast with the Lord at his return, with the hosts of heaven and the angels in attendance.

Here let us pause and consider something. Chapter 24 records Saul trying to kill David, and chapter 26 again records Saul pursuing him. Why, then, is Abigail suddenly recorded in chapter 25, between the two? It tells us that even in a harsh world that, like Saul, hunts God’s people and tries to kill them, there are children of faith here and there who, like Abigail, know God’s will and live it out. In a world full of people like Nabal, who ignored and despised David, let us never forget that there are fellow workers who hold a precious faith and come to our help. God places brothers and sisters of faith like Abigail beside those who serve him faithfully, and makes them work together for good, so that your faithfulness leads on to reward.

All of us must live with endurance until the day the Lord calls us. The Lord will keep asking for your hand until you give him your whole heart, and he will be waiting, having prepared eternal blessing and a dwelling place for you.

May you always pray with steadfast faith for your nation, your church, and your home. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.