Abigail
Rock and a Hard Place • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
Intro: Quick recap of the series
Hook: Refrigerator story
We had 3 refrigerators
My wife had a coworker that needed one. She offered the one in the garage.
We decided to move the basement one into the garage. Because every good midwest home has a fridge in their garage.
We get to the top of the stairs, and the refrigerator gets stuck.
It wasn’t until we got the right tool that it could be moved.
Transition statement.
Today we are in 1 Samuel 25. David, who was not yet king, was in the wilderness. He meets a man named Nabal. Nabal was very rich, having thousands of sheep and goats. David offered some of his men to protect the herd and shepherds in the wilderness. He asked that in return, Nabal would offer some of his resources to feed his men. When David sent some men to ask to be fed, Nabal acts like he’s never heard of them. This is a great warning against being prideful and thinking that our current success is only the result of our own labor. David hears about this, and tells 400 of his men to grab a sword. One of Nabal’s men goes to Abigail and tells her about what is going on.
But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “Behold, 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 were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. Now therefore know this and consider what you should do, for harm is determined against our master and against all his house, and he is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him.”
So, as we continue, let’s look at who this passage is about, what’s the rock and what’s the hard place.
The Rock:
Nabal, Abigail’s husband. Being a prideful, arrogant, jerk.
The Hard Place:
David’s army seeking vengeance and coming to take over.
How did she get there?
Being caught in the middle of a conflict not her own.
Sometimes, you’re in the middle of something that had nothing to do with you. While we can often want to put our head down and not get involved, sometimes there is no choice.
When do we have no choice—when we have an obligation to follow God.
How does she get out?
Doing the right thing and trusting God
Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves and two skins of wine and five sheep already prepared and five seahs of parched grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys. And she said to her young men, “Go on before me; behold, I come after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. And as she rode on the donkey and came down under cover of the mountain, behold, David and his men came down toward her, and she met them. Now David had said, “Surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him, and he has returned me evil for good.
She fell at 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, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal 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 bloodguilt and from saving with your own hand, now then let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be as Nabal.
She was a wise woman who saw what was going on!
She acts boldly in faith to do the right thing.
She acts independently to make sure that things are kept right in the agreement Nabal made with David.
How does she respond when she makes it through?
Peace is restored to her home.
For as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there had not been left to Nabal so much as one male.” Then David received from her hand what she had brought him. And he said to her, “Go up in peace to your house. See, I have obeyed your voice, and I have granted your petition.”
She then goes home to let Nabal know all that had happened.
As we go through this series, you are encouraged to be identifying “Rocks” in your life, that God needs to remove. But this story also offers a reminder that just because one crisis is averted, not everything will always be peaceful. Abigail returns home to a drunk husband, unaware of how close he came to dying. When she tells him what happened he has a stroke, and God strikes him dead 10 days later. She becomes a wife of David, who brings her in to honor her.
