Revenge is Never Yours

All right, let's pray.

Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your word, we ask that you would open our hearts and minds so that we may rightly understand it,

that we may know what it is that we are to believe, confess, and do.

As we trust in you in faith for the forgiveness of our sins, hope of eternal life, and in good works

and love towards neighbor, we ask in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, we're going to engage a little bit in the hermeneutical spiral today.

We're going to take a look at the last part of last week's lesson.

Actually, we're going to look at 1 Samuel 24 again, and we're going to watch what we read here

and as we continue in light of our epistle text today.

Remember these words.

Beloved.

By the way, the word beloved reminds us that we are beloved in Christ before God because of what Christ has done.

Beloved, never avenge yourselves.

Leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine.

I will repay, says the Lord.

To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.

If he's thirsty, give him something to drink.

For by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Interesting concept.

We're going to note that David is going to nail it in 1 Samuel 24, and

then in the following chapter, he's going to biff it.

You know, going back to a 1980s term, he's going to really mess this up,

and then we'll see that he catches himself in the next chapter after that.

But this idea of not taking vengeance, overcoming evil with good,

being kind to your enemies, which then convicts him of his own sin.

It's very fascinating.

So with that kind of as our lens, let's take a look again at 1 Samuel 24, when Saul returned from

following the Philistines, he was told, behold, David is in the wilderness of En Gedi.

Then Saul took 3 ,000 chosen men out of all of Israel, went to seek David and his men in front of the

wild goats, rocks, and he came to the sheepfolds by the way, where there was a

cave, and Saul went in to relieve himself.

Yes, it means what it says it means here.

So Saul is caught with his pants down, literally.

David and his men were sitting in the innermost parts of the cave, and the men of David said to him,

here is the day of which Yahweh said to you, behold, I will give your enemy into your hand.

You shall do to him as it shall seem good to you.

Then David rose, stealthily cut off a corner of Saul's robe.

And afterwards, David's heart struck him because he had cut off a corner of Saul's robe.

And he said to his men, the Lord Yahweh forbid that I should do this thing to my Lord, the Lord's anointed, to put out

my hand against him, seeing he is the Lord's anointed.

So David persuaded his men with these words and did not permit them to attack Saul.

Saul rose up, left the cave, went on his way, clearly unaware of what was happening.

Afterwards, David also arose, went out of the cave and called after Saul, my Lord, the king.

Saul looked behind him.

David bowed down with his face to the earth and paid homage.

David said to Saul, why do you listen to the words of men who say, behold, David seeks your harm?

Now, isn't this fascinating that here Saul is the one who's created this false narrative, this false narrative that

David has it out for Saul and wants to kill him, therefore I'm going to kill him first.

Totally made up by Saul, not made up by anybody else.

Saul's the one who came up with that lie.

And you'll note then that David doesn't even impute this

to Saul.

He basically attributes it to unknown men.

Why do you listen to the words of men?

We don't know who these men are, but they're fictitious men in a way.

Even David is very careful in how he's confronting Saul.

Behold, this day your eyes have seen how Yahweh gave you today into

my hand in the cave.

Some told me to kill you, but I spared you.

I said, I will not put out my hand against my Lord, for he is Yahweh's anointed.

See, my father, see the corner of your robe in my hand, for by the fact that I cut off the corner of your robe and did

not kill you, you may know and see that there is no wrong or treason in my hands.

I have not sinned against you, though you hunt my life to take it.

May Yahweh judge between me and you.

May Yahweh avenge me against you, but my hand shall not be against you.

As the proverb of the ancients says, out of the wicked comes wickedness, but my hand shall not be against you.

After whom has the king of Israel come out?

After whom do you pursue?

After a dead dog?

After a flea?

May Yahweh therefore be judge and give sentence between me and you, and see to it, and plead my

cause, and deliver me from your hand.

And as soon as David had finished speaking these words to Saul, Saul said, is this your voice, my

son David?

And Saul lifted up his voice and wept, and he said to David, you are more righteous than I,

for you have repaid me good where I have repaid you

evil.

Vengeance is mine.

Do not repay evil with evil.

Isn't it fascinating?

I mean almost verbatim what we're seeing here in this text.

And you have declared this day how you have dealt well with me, and in that you did not

kill me when Yahweh put me into your hands.

For if a man finds his enemy, will he let him go away safe?

So may Yahweh reward you with good for what you have done to me this day.

And now behold, I know that you shall surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand.

So swear to me therefore by Yahweh that you will not cut off my offspring after me, which was the ancient practice

in the Middle East.

You know kings would rise up and any rivals would die along with their children to make

sure that there were no rivals.

So he's making him swear that he will not cut off his offspring, and that you will not destroy my name out of

my father's house.

David swore this to Saul.

Saul went home.

David and his men went up to the stronghold.

So note, this is a living example of do

not avenge yourselves.

Leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.

To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.

If he's relieving himself in front of you, don't strike him down.

If he's thirsty, give him something to drink, for so by doing you will heap burning coals on his head.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

And like we noted in the sermon, the perfect example, the quintessential example of this is Christ's death on the cross.

And so you'll note then that we see in the cross God's mercy and grace.

We see in the story of David, he's acting exactly like how God would have us

act.

He's doing these good works.

He's even doing good works for his enemy.

However, David's still a sinner.

And the next story, now David has a moment of

sinful weakness.

It's a fascinating story because it's, we would expect that King David, the anointed but not yet

reigning King of Israel, anointed but not yet coronated, that he

would be typifying Christ in all of these stories.

Now the typology changes.

David is going to be a lot like us, struggling with our sinful nature and giving in

to the temptations of his sinful flesh.

And the one who will now, in type and shadow, point us to Christ is

a woman.

And it's amazing.

This is a jewel of a story.

It's very fascinating.

So we read, Samuel died, chapter 25, all Israel assembled and mourned for him

and they buried him in his house at Ramah.

Then David rose and went down to the wilderness of Paran.

And there was a man in Ma 'on whose business was in caramel.

The man was very rich.

He had 3 ,000 sheep, 1 ,000 goats.

He was shearing his sheep in caramel.

Now the name of the man was Naval.

That's actually how you pronounce it in Hebrew.

It's Naval.

And the name of his wife was Abigail.

By the way, Naval in Hebrew means fool,

which you just have to ask the question, who is the fool that named this guy fool?

And if somebody named you fool, would you want to embrace this name?

What kind of a fool is this?

And that's kind of the strange thing about this.

And this guy's name fits his character perfectly, which makes it kind of hint at the fact,

your mama didn't name you this.

At least this is not what's on your birth certificate.

But because of just how stupid you are, somebody has named you stupid.

And you decided, yeah, that's a great name.

What's your name?

Stupid.

You know, so I mean, that's kind of how this story is going.

So, I mean, you read this in Hebrew and you sit there going, no, that's his name.

And there's no other name given for this fellow.

His name is fool.

All right.

So the name of the man was Naval.

Name of his wife, Abigail.

The woman was discerning and beautiful.

The man was harsh and badly behaved.

He was a Calebite.

Man.

So you're going to note here, who's the honorable one?

The woman.

Who's the dishonorable one?

The man.

So you'll notice the gender roles here.

God's word does not prejudge someone based upon sex.

Women, many women in scripture, behave discerningly and wonderfully and like Christ.

And she is going to exemplify Jesus in spades.

While David and Naval are both going to come up woefully short in this

story.

So David heard in the wilderness that Naval was shearing his sheep.

Let me give you a little bit of backstory.

You'll see the details later in the chapter.

So you, to shear your sheep, you'd kind of herd them like cattle and you'd travel from one place to another.

And when you're traveling with this many sheep, chances are really good that

if you leave with a thousand, you're going to arrive at the sheep shearer with 950.

50 of them are going to go missing.

And it's not because they've wandered off.

It's because somebody took them.

So you think of highway men and brigands and, you know, raiders and things like that.

What David did for this fellow.

So David, at this point, is kind of supposed to not still be on Israel's most wanted list

because of the incident with the cave.

But David stays in the wilderness at the stronghold near Ma 'on.

And while he's there, he and his mighty men decide, hey, we've got nothing

better to do.

It's sheep shearing season.

Why don't we guard the sheep while these shepherds transport their sheep from one place to another?

And so David and his men literally set up guard duty and they

protect all of Naval's property and his sheep so that not

one sheep goes missing.

Not one.

And they didn't have to do this.

So Naval loses nothing like he normally would.

And you would think that in gratitude for such a

kind, good work of protecting somebody else's property, that

that person would in gratitude show kindness at just a small request.

That's the idea.

But watch what happens.

So David sent 10.

Okay.

David heard in the wilderness and Naval was shearing his sheep.

So David sent 10 young men.

And David said to the young men, go up to Carmel, go to Naval, greet him in my name.

And thus you shall greet him.

Now this is the guard duty has already taken place and greet him this way.

Peace be with you.

Peace be to your house.

Peace be to all that you have.

Shalom, shalom, shalom.

Three shaloms here.

I hear that you have shearers.

Now your shepherds have been with us and we did note them no harm.

And they missed nothing at all the time they were in Carmel.

So he is basically saying, Hey, we protected all your property.

Why you got, you get, you sent your sheep up to Carmel.

So therefore ask your young men and they will tell you, let them tell you the story of what happened because the, you

know, the people who worked for Naval, they experienced this kindness on the part of David.

So therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes for we come on a feast day.

Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son, David.

So in return for all of this, we just ask that you give our men a meal for a feast day.

Reasonable.

I mean, tiny little thing to ask for.

One meal for his that's it.

So when David's young men came, they said all this to Naval in the name of David, and then they waited.

Naval answered David's servants.

Who's David?

Who's the son of Jesse?

There are many servants these days who are breaking 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

come from I don't know where?

So David's young men turned away and came back and told him all of this.

So what a stupid, foolish response.

David and his men guarded all of your property.

You lost nothing.

All we asked was for one meal and you treated them this way.

Remember the old Ren and Snimpy cartoons?

Idiot!

Idiot!

What are you thinking here, right?

So David said to his men, every man strap on his sword.

Every man of them strapped on a sword.

David also strapped on his sword and about 400 men went up after David while 200 remained with the baggage.

Men are going to die.

Now your note.

Scripture says you do not repay evil with evil.

So David is coming up way short here.

Way short.

He's in a hot rage and he's about to do something wicked,

wickedly sinful.

And we're talking about killing and murdering people in cold blood without real cause, just because he was

insulted.

But one of the young men told Abigail, Naval'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.

Now here's the real report.

If Naval had asked his men like David told him to, here's

the report he would have gotten.

The men were very good to us.

We suffered no harm.

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 no, that one cannot speak to him.

Wow.

So now we know the real story, what really happened and all David has asked for in return for all of this

unasked for kindness was one meal.

So then Abigail, she made haste.

Notice she's the one who's got the brains here.

She made haste, took 200 loaves, two skins of wine, five sheep already

prepared, five say as a parched grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and 200 cakes of figs,

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 of all.

So she's acting contrary to his expressed stupid will.

And at this point she knows she's saving everybody's next.

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.

That was the theme.

You don't repay evil with evil here.

And Neval has repaid good with evil.

So God do so to me, to the enemies of David and more also, if by morning I

leave so much as one male of all who belong to him.

Wow.

That's an oath he should not have made, nor should he keep.

It would be, it's now sinful for him to break his oath.

And it's also sinful for him to keep his oath.

But God has intervened.

Watch.

So Abigail is on it.

When Abigail saw David, she hurried and got down from the donkey and fell before

David on her face and bowed to the ground.

She is forehead to dirt, bowed down before David.

She fell at his feet and she said, listen to these words, on

me alone, my Lord, be the guilt.

Wow.

I want you to think about this.

It says in Isaiah 53 regarding Christ, God has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Jesus stands in our place as our substitute on the cross and literally says,

let all of their guilt be on me.

I'll take it.

Now, most women I know their lead off argument at this point

would be, listen, my husband's a complete idiot.

Forgive him.

He doesn't know what he's doing.

That's not what she does.

She says, let his guilt be on me.

I alone am responsible.

That is Christ -like.

And it's a picture of our sin being imputed to Christ.

Here, Naval's sin is being imputed to Abigail.

She is now the stand -in for Jesus in this story because David has fallen woefully short.

Wow.

What an amazing picture.

On me alone, my Lord, be the guilt.

Please let your servant speak in your ears and hear the words of your servant.

What follows next is a fantastic picture of prayer.

This is amazing prayer.

Let not my Lord regard this worthless fellow, Naval, for as his name is,

so he is.

Naval is his name and folly is with him.

So now she talks about what an idiot her husband is, right?

But notice she led off with, let his guilt be imputed to me.

But I, your servant, did not see the young men of my Lord whom you sent.

And so here's, she's taking blame because she wasn't even aware.

She did not know.

She was unaware that David had sent men.

So now then, my Lord, as Yahweh lives and as your soul lives, because Yahweh has restrained you

from blood guilt and from saving with your own hand.

And there it is.

So repaying evil with evil and taking vengeance,

the Hebrew idiom for this, you know, the phrase for it is

saving with your own hand.

And you're going to hear this phrase three times in this chapter.

First time it appears.

The Lord has restrained you from blood guilt because you truly would have blood on your hands if you killed all these people in cold blood

because of an insult.

And God has prevented you from saving with your own hand.

Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.

It is not David's place.

It is not his vocation or office to take vengeance on Neval.

Neval may be an idiot, but he's done nothing deserving of death, not by the hand of David.

Now then, let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my Lord be as

Neval.

Now let this present that your servant has brought to my Lord be given to the young

men who follow my Lord and please forgive the trespass of your

servant for Yahweh will certainly make my Lord a sure house because my Lord is

fighting the battles of Yahweh and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live.

If men rise up to pursue you and seek your life and the life of my Lord shall be bound in the

bundle of the living in the care of the Lord your God and the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from

the hollow of a sling and when Yahweh has done to my Lord according to all the good that he has

spoken concerning you and has appointed you prince over Israel my Lord shall have no cause of

grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for

my Lord working salvation for himself.

So here again notice Abigail's intervention is preventing David

and it's God's prevention from him having guilt later in life for having

been so rash and in sinned in his anger and working salvation for himself

which is taking vengeance and when Yahweh has dealt well with my Lord then remember

your servant.

What a great prayer.

So David said to Abigail blessed be Yahweh the God of Israel who has sent you this day to meet

me and so David acknowledges then it was none other than the Lord himself who

sent Abigail.

Isn't that amazing?

David here is not playing the role of the Messiah in type and shadow.

He looks just far too much like me, far too much like you.

He's prepared to sin in his anger and God has sent this woman to

restrain him and she is the one who is the most Christ -like in this chapter.

Blessed be your discretion, blessed be you who have kept me this day from blood guilt

and from working salvation with my own hand.

The third time we see that phrase that's taking vengeance, working salvation

by your own hand.

For surely as Yahweh the God of Israel lives who has restrained me from hurting you unless you had

hurried and come to me truly by morning there had not been left to Neval so much as one

male.

Then David received from her hand what she 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.

Interesting.

So here we get a little bit of a picture type and shadow of what it looks like when the bride of Christ prays.

God hears and God obeys the voice of the bride of Christ and you're thinking well she's not married to

David yet.

Interesting.

Now of course disaster has been averted.

How many people would have been put to the sword?

A lot.

It would have been quite awful if David had followed through on this.

So now Abigail has the unenviable task of explaining

to her foolish husband what she just did

and to explain to him that had she not done this he would not be breathing at this moment.

She saved his bacon.

So Abigail came to Neval and behold he was holding a feast in his house like the feast of

a king, of course.

A feast in honor of just how amazing he is.

See we had a great year this year for guys.

We sent the sheep off to have them sheared and they all came back.

We didn't lose anything.

Let's party.

I'm the king of the world.

Idiot.

Neval's heart was merry within him for he was, didn't say drunk, very drunk.

Yeah this was word slurring hangover next day kind of drunk.

So she told him nothing at all until the morning light and in the morning when the wine had gone out

of Neval his wife told him these things and here's an interesting phrase.

His heart died within in him and he became as a stone.

I think this text is actually describing that he has a heart attack

for real.

That's what I think is being described here.

He listens to her explain all of what happened and out of complete terror, fear, and

the weight of magnitude of what it is that she just said he literally has a heart

attack.

He doesn't die immediately.

It's not like you know it's not the big one where he has a heart attack and then he's just dead on the floor.

He has a heart attack and he became as a stone.

Ten days later Yahweh struck Neval and he died.

Probably congestive heart failure ten days after this.

Vengeance is mine says the Lord.

So in this particular case God exacted vengeance and repaid

Neval according to his deeds and repaid David

according to his deeds and David did not work salvation for himself.

God works salvation for David and this is exactly how God operates.

We read the text again from Romans.

Never avenge yourselves.

Leave it to the wrath of God for it is written vengeance is mine.

I will repay says the Lord and now we see it.

This is a perfect example.

Now it happens in a compressed time period but have you ever had a situation where you feel

like what is really called for is that God repay somebody's evil for what they've

done?

Yeah.

Do not save by your own hand.

God may work in that person repentance so that they

recognize the evil that they have paid you with and you repay evil

with good.

Fascinating.

The story continues now.

So David has fallen woefully short.

Neval now is dead and here's the interesting part.

David heard that Neval was dead and he said blessed be Yahweh who has avenged the

insult I received at the hand of Neval and has kept back his servant from wrongdoing.

Yahweh has returned the evil of Neval on his own head and then David sent and spoke to Abigail to

take her as a wife.

When the servants of David came to Abigail at Carmel they said to her David has sent us

to take you to him as his wife and she rose and bowed with her face to the ground and she 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 messengers of David and became his wife.

Now it's funny in the church fathers Abigail is seen as a type and shadow now at this

point of the bride of Christ and you're going to note the text then says David also took Ahanoam

of Jezreel and both of them became his wives plural.

Saul had given Michal his daughter David's wife to Palty the son of Laish who was in Galim.

Church fathers see these two wives Abigail and Ahanoam as a

picture of the complete bride of Christ and it's fascinating.

The church fathers see Abigail as the gentile portion of the bride of Christ which is fascinating.

They they like they liken her to the gentiles.

Yeah what does it mean means father's delight.

Father's delight.

So it makes sense.

Yes indeed it does father's delight.

Yeah ah very good.

She's the father's delight.

Now you're going to note here that this is real history but let me

kind of throw this out with some details.

In this way we find Abigail is a humble hard

-working beautiful and discerning woman who is under the thumb

of a terrible oppressor in this case her husband and through her

smart this beautiful woman saves the day is

freed from this terrible marriage and now marries the king.

What does that sound like.

It sounds like every fairy tale you've ever read again you just note isn't this

fascinating.

Where did these fairy tales get their stuff from these fairy tales are picking up on

these types and shadows in the in the bible and we in our hearts we

know the difference between good and evil.

We know that evil is selfish bent in on itself foolish insane stupid

lazy rude mean cold whereas

good is loving kind merciful hard

-working.

And you can see it in these stories.

We know this we know this from our own lives.

We know this from the law of god written on our hearts.

And here you just kind of play it all out.

And in this story david takes a back seat.

He doesn't get to bring forth the true picture of what christ looks like at all.

It's this woman who does and she's beautiful and in some ways she really prefigures

christ but she also prefigures the bride of christ because she she

truly just shines forth with christ's character and his love and his

mercy and his wisdom and kindness and industriousness and hard workingness.

And she doesn't even avenge herself.

Eventually god avenges david but it also vindicates her.

It's very very fascinating story.

Love it.

And i haven't even begun to do it.

Total justice.

But you get the idea then i mean this story of abigail's kind of like a diamond.

I mean it's a really large diamond.

You can look at it from this way.

You can look at it this way.

And it's just amazing what happened what has happened in this text.

So we thank god that david.

Well we can see his weaknesses.

We can see that he is not sinless.

God prevents him from sinning here.

But he is not without fault.

He has the same temptations that we all do and god would not allow him to be tempted

beyond that which he could bear.

The story then continues david in his right mind now will

exemplify christ yet again.

And we're going to note here that when we last left off where saul was saul had

come out of the bathroom and realized that god had

given him into the hands of david and that his false narrative that david was out

to kill him was blown up in his face.

So you'd think david at this point should be free to

roam around israel without any harm.

But not so such is the nature of sin because it was never about the narrative

that saul had spun the lies that he was spewing it.

The lies that he was spewing were always the cover for what it was that he was

really about.

And that was murdering his rival.

So without that lie do you think that's going to stop saul from

wanting to achieve his ultimate objective.

All right.

Fine.

I can't say that he's out to kill me but maybe i can.

How many people know maybe the word hasn't gotten out.

So chapter 26 then opens with.

Then the ziphites came to saul at gibeah saying is not david hiding himself on the

hill of haqqalah which is on the east of jeshimon.

So saul rose went down to the wilderness of ziph with 3 000

chosen men of israel to seek david in the wilderness of ziph

and saul encamped on the hill of haqqalah which is beside the road on the east of

jeshimon.

But david remained in the wilderness when he saw that saul came after him into the wilderness.

I mean seriously what how why.

You know you just see david just going.

I thought we did so david remained in the wilderness.

We saw saul came after him.

He in the end of the wilderness.

David sent out spies and learned that saul had indeed come.

And then david rose came to the place where saul had encamped and david saw the place where

saul lay with abner the son of nur and the commander of his army.

Saul was lying with the encamp with the encampment while the army was encamped around

him.

Then david said to ahimelech the hittite and to joab's brother

abishai the son of zariah who will go down with me

into the camp to saul.

And abishai said i'll go down with you.

So david said david and abishai went to the army by night.

And there lay saul sleeping within the encampment with his spear stuck in the ground at his

head.

Ah there's that spear again.

That spear is like you know it's like a character in the story now right.

You know that spear first shows up when saul's being tormented by this evil

spirit and he's trying to pin david to the wall and kill him.

So it's like he's not.

He doesn't go anywhere without the spear.

This is the spirit that's going to kill david.

Well actually no it's not.

But that spear will eventually hit christ.

But there's the spear.

It's it's fascinating.

It just keeps showing up.

The spear stuck on the ground in his head.

Abner and the army lay around him.

Then abishai said to david god has given your enemy into your hand this day.

Now please let me pin him to the earth with one stroke of the spear and i will not strike

him twice.

There's that temptation again to become king in the wrong way.

David said to abishai do not destroy him.

For who can put out his hand against yahweh's anointed and be guiltless.

So now david's back in his right mind.

If you would.

He recognizes it is not his vocation to take the life of saul.

There's only one person who can take saul's life god.

And he will leave it to the lord.

The lord forbid that i should put out my hand against the lord's anointed.

But take now the spear that is at his head and the jar of water and let us go.

Interesting.

I just i seem to remember that at the cross there was a spear at a jar.

I'm just saying you know just fascinating.

You know props from the crucifixion end up all the way here back in time.

You know in in the jar at the cross though they have vinegar all right.

So david took the spear and the jar of water from saul's head

and they went away.

No man saw it or knew it nor did any awake.

For they were all asleep because a deep sleep from yahweh had fallen upon them.

Then david went over to the other side and stood far off on the top of the hill with a great space

between them.

And david called to the army and abner the son of nur saying will you not answer abner.

And abner answered who are you who calls to the king.

And david said to abner are you not a man who is like you in israel.

Why then have you not kept watch over your lord the king.

For one of the people came in to destroy the king your lord this thing that you have done is not good

as the lord lives as yahweh lives.

You deserve to die because you have not kept watch over the lord.

Your lord yahweh's anointed.

And now see where the king's spear is.

And the jar of water that was at his head.

And saul recognized david's voice and said is this your voice.

My son david.

He always has these.

He's almost he's like bipolar or something.

Yeah.

One minute.

He's gonna kill.

David is oh is that you my son.

No come here give me a squinch.

No.

So david said it is my voice my lord.

Oh king.

And he said why does my lord pursue after his servant.

Which is a great question.

What have i done.

What evil is on my hands now.

Therefore let my lord the king hear the words of his servant.

If it is yahweh who has stirred you up against me may he accept an offering.

But if it is men may they be cursed before yahweh.

For they have driven me out of this out this day that i should have no share in the heritage

in the inherit the heritage of yahweh saying go and serve other gods now.

Therefore let not my blood fall to the earth away from the presence of yahweh.

For the king of israel has come out to seek a flea like one who hunts a partridge in the mountains.

Then saul said i've sinned i've sinned.

Return my son david for i will no more.

Do you harm.

Because my life was precious in your eyes this day.

Behold i have acted foolishly and have made a great mistake.

And david answered and said here's the spear.

Oh king let one of the young men come over and take it.

The lord yahweh rewards every man for his righteousness and his faithfulness.

For yahweh gave you into my hand today and i would not put out my hand against the lord's anointed.

Behold as your life was precious this day in my sight so may my life

be precious in the sight of yahweh and may he deliver me out of all tribulation.

Then saul said to david blessed be you my son david.

You will do many things and will succeed in them.

So david went his way.

Saul returned to his place huh.

Isn't that interesting beloved.

Never avenge yourselves.

Leave it to the wrath of god.

For his written vengeance is mine.

I will repay says the lord.

To the contrary if your enemy is hungry feed him.

If he's sleeping and his spear is next to his head do not pin him to the earth with it.

He's thirsty.

Give him something to drink.

For by doing so you will heap burning coals on his head.

Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.

Wow.

So here we have a clear passage of scripture teaching us that this is the way of god.

This is what it means to bear fruit in keeping with repentance to love your neighbor as yourself and to even love your

enemy.

Because what does scripture say about christ.

That god that christ died for his enemies.

So you overcome evil with good.

And so we see it now in the life of david.

He gets it right.

The first time totally biffs it the second time.

And the sane one who looks like jesus is abigail.

Wonderful story.

And second time around his insane father -in -law

who has it out for him.

Once again has evil returned with good.

And it leads to him saying i was wrong.

You were right.

And this is what we are to do now.

In david's case this happened over a longer period of time than three chapters which took

us just a little bit of time to read took a lot longer.

David was on the run for a long period of time

and yet god made good his word and god vindicated david

and god had his vengeance on naval.

And he ultimately will have his vengeance on saul as well.

This takes faith.

This takes believing that god will keep his word.

And believe me in the moment that you're experiencing the need to exercise this faith

it's going to be tough because when this type of faith is

needed for these types of circumstances you are being made to

suffer unjustly.

And you are experiencing somebody who is dishing out evil to you.

And our sinful nature says you want to do that to me.

I can play that game too.

And scripture says we are not to play that game because we have

been redeemed from lawlessness.

We used to be slaves to our sinful passions.

We are forgiven we are washed.

We are redeemed we are holy.

So we carry our crosses and we deny ourselves and we love our

enemies like christ did like david did.

Yeah it is.

That's right.

It's everywhere.

Here's the worst part.

Not only is it everywhere it's here.

It's in my own heart.

It's not out there it's in here.

These are tough words and it takes faith and humility

and a confessing of your own sinful shortcomings to be able to walk this out in

faith.

But i assure you god has never spoken a word and said that he will do something and has not done it.

He doesn't lie.

He is slow to anger.

He's abounding in stealth steadfast love pardoning iniquity.

And that's what he's done for us.

And he sees the sufferings we go through.

And i'm not talking about you suffering because of something stupid you did when you play the part of nabal.

Yeah that's a different story altogether.

Right.

Nabal had it coming but god was the one who had to dish that out.

Nabal did not suffer because of his great faith in christ.

Nabal suffered because of his wickedness unbelief and foolishness.

Yeah.

And selfishness what does scripture say.

The fool says in his heart there is no god.

The naval says that the fool says in his heart there is no god.

And that's what naval is.

He's foolish.

He's godless.

But the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom fear of the lord.

We'll leave there today.