Abigails plea

Title: Abigail's Plea

Series: Friendly Advice

Text: 1st Samuel 25

D.T We need friends who remind us to not let negative emotion lead us to make negative choices.

Introduction: Today we continue our series “Friendly Advice” the purpose of this series is to examine the friendships of King David and how they shaped him. Throughout this series, we are repeatedly going to be shown 1 conclusion. David’s ability to become a man after God’s own heart depended on the quality of his relationships. Last week we examined David's friendship with Jonathan. David’s friendship with Jonathan was defined by actions. Jonathan's actions helped save David’s life. It would be hard for David to be a man after God’s own heart if he was dead. Some friendships are defined by actions, while others are defined by advice. Today we are going to examine David’s friendship with Abigail, a friendship which would eventually lead to marriage. This relationship starts with Abigail giving David important advice which would prevent him from making a really bad choice. Let’s get started with the story.

David and Abigail

This story takes place shortly after David fled the King's palace after Jonathan helped him discover that Saul wanted to kill David.

David lived in the wilderness and caves as a fugitive.

However David did not live alone. David had men and warriors who were loyal to him. They lived in the wilderness and awaited the time when Saul would no longer be a threat.

This means that David and his men would have to live off the land. Occasionally they would encounter landowners and farmers who were sympathetic to David and his situation, and they would provide David with food and resources.

In the beginning of 1st Samuel 25 David and his men are camped near the property of a man named Nabal (fool) and his wife Abigail.

David believed he could convince Nabal to provide food and resources for David and his men. Nabal had a group of shepherds watching over their sheep near to where David and his men were staying. David and his men dealt amicably with the shepherds who were employed by Nabal. It’s quite possible that David and his men helped protect these shepherds from harm. At the very least David and his men didn’t bother Nabals shepherds and didn’t steal from them. David believed that by treating his shepherds well, Nabal would feel obligated to help David out.

David sent his messengers to make contact with Nabal.

READ 1st Samuel 25:9-13

1 Samuel 25:9–13 MSG

David’s young men went and delivered his message word for word to Nabal. Nabal tore into them, “Who is this David? Who is this son of Jesse? The country is full of runaway servants these days. Do you think I’m going to take good bread and wine and meat freshly butchered for my sheepshearers and give it to men I’ve never laid eyes on? Who knows where they’ve come from?” David’s men got out of there and went back and told David what he had said. David said, “Strap on your swords!” They all strapped on their swords, David and his men, and set out, four hundred of them. Two hundred stayed behind to guard the camp.

There is a popular phrase which often makes the rounds these days. The saying goes like this. Never make a decision when you are angry. This advice would mean little to David at this moment, because he is getting ready to make a decision when he’s angry. Nabal rejects David and insults him while doing so. David views this as a disrespectful slight on the part of Nabal, and he’s furious! He’s not about to let Nabal think he has a right to slight David and insult him so publicly. Lock and load fellas! We head out in the morning, and we take no prisoners. This is more less how David responds to what he feels like is disrespect on the part of Nabal. Is David’s response measured? Is his response proportionate? The fact that David is getting ready to kill all of Nabals household and servants because he feels disrespected by one man ought to answer that question on it’s own.

READ 1st Samuel 25:14-19

1 Samuel 25:14–19 MSG

Meanwhile, one of the young shepherds told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, what had happened: “David sent messengers from the backcountry to salute our master, but he tore into them with insults. Yet these men treated us very well. They took nothing from us and didn’t take advantage of us all the time we were in the fields. They formed a wall around us, protecting us day and night all the time we were out tending the sheep. Do something quickly because big trouble is ahead for our master and all of us. Nobody can talk to him. He’s impossible—a real brute!” Abigail flew into action. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep dressed out and ready for cooking, a bushel of roasted grain, a hundred raisin cakes, and two hundred fig cakes, and she had it all loaded on some donkeys. Then she said to her young servants, “Go ahead and pave the way for me. I’m right behind you.” But she said nothing to her husband Nabal.

Abigail is shrewd enough to know how David is likely to respond. She knows that David is on his way with a loaded gun and a pack of sandwiches. She knows her life, the lives of her family and the servants she cares about is in danger. So races to meet David on the road before he can arrive at the property and begin the slaughter. While racing down the road, she finally encounters David and his men.

READ 1st Samuel 25:25-35

1 Samuel 25:25–35 MSG

Don’t dwell on what that brute Nabal did. He acts out the meaning of his name: Nabal, Fool. Foolishness oozes from him. “I wasn’t there when the young men my master sent arrived. I didn’t see them. And now, my master, as God lives and as you live, God has kept you from this avenging murder—and may your enemies, all who seek my master’s harm, end up like Nabal! Now take this gift that I, your servant girl, have brought to my master, and give it to the young men who follow in the steps of my master. “Forgive my presumption! But God is at work in my master, developing a rule solid and dependable. My master fights God’s battles! As long as you live no evil will stick to you. If anyone stands in your way, if anyone tries to get you out of the way, Know this: Your God-honored life is tightly bound in the bundle of God-protected life; But the lives of your enemies will be hurled aside as a stone is thrown from a sling. “When God completes all the goodness he has promised my master and sets you up as prince over Israel, my master will not have this dead weight in his heart, the guilt of an avenging murder. And when God has worked things for good for my master, remember me.” And David said, “Blessed be God, the God of Israel. He sent you to meet me! And blessed be your good sense! Bless you for keeping me from murder and taking charge of looking out for me. A close call! As God lives, the God of Israel who kept me from hurting you, if you had not come as quickly as you did, stopping me in my tracks, by morning there would have been nothing left of Nabal but dead meat.” Then David accepted the gift she brought him and said, “Return home in peace. I’ve heard what you’ve said and I’ll do what you’ve asked.”

When Abigail arrives she pleads with David.

My Husband Nabal oozes with foolishness

However if you kill him because of these words, you are a fool just like him.

Upon hearing Abigail's words David’s like “Wow, you’re right!” God has ordained we will meet. God has ordained that you’d talk some sense into me! I was ready to commit mass murder all because I was angry! However you showed up and stopped me before I could do something so foolish!

David accepted the gift Abigail brought, and they departed in peace

Nabal would eventually die, and David would take Abigail as his wife.

Their friendship started some of the best advice David ever received. Don’t let your negative emotions lead you to make negative decisions.

Nabal was the only person guilty of disrespecting David. However it wouldn’t just be Nabal who was killed. Everyone from his family to his servants would have all been killed. Hundreds of innocent people would have died because David felt disrespected.

If David went on to kill Nabal and his servants, do you think Israel would have been sympathetic to him? Or would the people rally behind Saul?

David was getting ready to make a horrible choice, but Abigail provided the sound advice which stopped him. David had people he had in his life who were able to call him out when evil was over taking him. When he stepped too close to the edge, and looked into the abyss of evil hoping to overtake him, David had friends like Abigail who pulled him away from that edge.

We need friends like Abigail. Friends who remind us to not let negative emotion lead us to make negative choices. Many of us are much closer to letting negative emotions lead us to negative decisions than we’d like to admit.

We are close to responding in anger, which may destroy friendships.

Sometimes we may find ourselves in situations where we are close to making choices which may not only harm ourselves but harm the vast network of people around us, a network which is always bigger than we realize.

We need friends who are like minded, who love Jesus, his people and his church. Friends like Abigail. Placed in our lives by God at these moments we need them most, to talk sense into us when we are spinning, lost and without direction. Friends who point us back to Jesus.