Wise Abigail and Humble David - A Portrait of Complementarity (1 Samuel 25)

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Well, it is my pleasure to introduce to you our guest speaker today. I asked

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Owen to email me a quick bio that I could use as an introduction for both the conference and the

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Sunday morning, and he emailed me something that is much shorter than it could have been, given his list of accomplishments.

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Owen Strand is the Provost and Professor of Theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary. He is a native of Maine and did his ministry training at Southern Seminary, his

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MDiv, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, his PhD. He is married to Bethany and is the father of three children, two of them teenagers.

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He enjoys watching basketball, coaching basketball, hiking with his family in natural beauty, and he enjoys milkshakes.

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He hosts the Grace and Truth podcast and is a senior fellow of the Family Research Council. That's officially what he gave me, but I want to give you a few other details.

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And I'm not going to say anything about the other stuff that we talked about at the conference, because I promised everybody that that was behind us.

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Owen comes to us in the midst or at a time of intense and crazy busyness for him and his family.

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He is in the process of changing occupations from GBTS, Grace Baptist Theological Seminary, to go take a different position at a

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Center for Cultural Engagement, which is kind of really geared to what Owen is good at. And a couple weeks ago when he called and we were chatting on the phone about our conference for this weekend and him coming here, he was telling me about all of that.

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And I half expected him to say, would you mind if I just bailed on the conference? And he didn't do that. Instead, he came here and he preached six sessions on our conference, did two

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Q &As at Sunday school this morning, and now preaching. In spite of being as busy as he was, he prepared for this.

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And then he showed up here and we worked him like a redheaded stepchild. And he has held up under that.

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I want to commend a few things to you. First, his Grace and Truth podcast. I would commend that to you because Owen does a great job of dealing with issues that are going on in our culture and in the church, and doing so in a very balanced, theological, practical, pastoral way.

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He's excellent at that. So I'd recommend that podcast. And then there are two books that he has written that are available for sale at our conference price of $20 each.

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And they're on the table out there. One of them is called The War on Men. And it deals with the way the culture is going and how the culture is waging a war on men.

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It's waging a war on women as well. But his first book on that subject is

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The War on Men. Maybe The War on Women at some other point. But that is sort of Owen's specialty, is really dealing with the issues of biblical manhood and womanhood.

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And so that book is excellent. I would commend that to you, as well as Christianity and Wokeness, which is also available out there.

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If you wonder what is going on in our culture with DEI and critical race theory and social justice and the systemic racism and all of that, this is a book that is an excellent primer, an excellent introduction to some of those cultural trends and issues that are pressing their way into the church today.

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And then a third book, which I just thought of, The Warrior Savior, which just came out this year. It is a theology of the work of Christ.

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I haven't read that one. I've read the other two. I haven't read that one, but I will commend it to you because I know Owen's theology and I know the readability of what he does when he writes a book.

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He makes it very accessible, very readable, which he does when he preaches as well. You can follow Owen on social media, are you on Facebook and Instagram?

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And according to our conversation last night at dinner, soon to be TikTok. So it almost sounds awkward to say follow

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Owen Strand on TikTok. I don't even want to say that, but watch, it's coming soon.

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With that, it is my joy to introduce Owen Strand. This is the short introduction.

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I don't want to hear the long one, including a segue to TikTok at the end there, just so now the people are looking at me weird as I preach.

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Thank you very much, Jim, in all seriousness. It's all good fun. And thank you so much for having me here. I'm so thankful for this sound church and your pastor and your elders and the strong ministry that's here.

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So it's a blessing to be here and to open God's word with you. And thank you to everyone who's showed me such warm hospitality and kindness during my time here.

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I originally had hoped to bring my wife, but as Jim mentioned, it's a momentous season for the

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Strand family. And so that changed some plans. We are going to be in an unexpected place this morning.

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We're going to be in 1 Samuel 25. 1 Samuel 25, we're going to learn about David and Abigail.

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I love King David. I love the whole narrative of David in the Old Testament.

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He has something of an up and down existence, as many of you know, but there's so much to learn from his life and so much to glean from his story.

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In 1 Samuel 25, in the Old Testament, as you're turning there, we're going to meet three main characters.

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We're going to meet Nabal, Abigail, and the aforementioned David. All three figures have a key role in this chapter of God's word.

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All three help us understand the kind of man or woman that God's grace creates.

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That's what we've been talking about over the course of the weekend. We've been talking about God's design for men and women and the family and marriage and all these kinds of things.

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And so I wanted to go to a chapter, an unexpected one. Nobody, when I surveyed the crowd at the conference this weekend, had ever heard a sermon on David and Abigail.

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No one. But this is actually, I believe, a chapter in God's word that gives us a beautiful vision of godly manhood and godly womanhood in some surprising ways.

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So what we're going to do is look at this passage in six parts. I'm going to have to be brisk as I go.

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I'm going to start by reading some of the verses. And as time goes on, I'll probably just summarize so that I get you to your lunch, which may or may not include, if you are blessed, huckleberries.

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Huckleberries are your best kept secret. I just want you to know that. You guys should take this. I may want to talk to some of you business -minded entrepreneurs about taking huckleberries national.

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It's all for free. That's all for free. First, verses one through eight. Our first scene, we see

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Nabal was harsh and nasty. For those of you taking notes, Nabal was harsh and nasty.

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First Samuel 25, one. Now Samuel died, and all Israel assembled and mourned for him, and they buried him in his house at Ramah.

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Then David rose and went down to the wilderness of Paran. And there was a man and man whose business was in Carmel.

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The man was very rich. He had 3 ,000 sheep and 1 ,000 goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel.

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Now the name of the man was Nabal and the name of his wife, Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved.

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He was a Calebite. David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. So David sent 10 young men, and David said to the young men, go up to Carmel, go to Nabal and greet him in my name.

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And thus you shall greet him. Peace be to you. Peace be to your house. Peace be to all that you have. I hear that you have shearers.

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Now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel.

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Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore, let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a feast day.

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

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Let's pray. Father, as we turn to this chapter, we know that it is in your word. It is

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Bible. And I pray, Father God, that you would speak to us from your word now. Convict us, strengthen us, encourage us, ultimately point us to the greater

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David, King Jesus. In his name we pray. Amen. After the death of Samuel, the great prophet of God's people,

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David needed food. David, as we pick up this passage in the book of 1 Samuel, is on the run from wicked

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King Saul. David and Saul have had numerous encounters with one another.

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David escaping Saul's clutches and very death itself by the hair of his chin.

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And so David is though called to be the next King of Israel on the run.

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It's a wild story. It's a narrative a Hollywood writer couldn't dream up, but it's all true.

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Everything we're covering in 1 Samuel 25, as with everything in God's word, is true.

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It's a true story. The timing of these events is important because Samuel dies.

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And as we will see in this chapter, wisdom seems to be diminished among the people of God.

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The trouble David now faces in 1 Samuel 25 is not that of Saul, as with previous chapters.

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Now David has trouble with a member of his broader clan. A very rich man named

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Nabal moved his animals to Carmel in the Middle East, a site where Saul had constructed a monument to himself in 1

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Samuel 15. Not a great thing to do, by the way, if you're a king. You don't usually go around building monuments to yourself.

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Nabal was a Calebite. He was from an honored family from the broader tribe of Judah, the 12 tribes of Israel, as you'll know.

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And the tribe of Judah is a very prominent one. The Calebites founded Bethlehem, David's birthplace.

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And so what I'm trying to say is this, David and Nabal were kinsmen. They were connected.

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They were related. David expects, as you probably picked up in the passage I just read, that his kinsman is going to treat him well.

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But instead, that is not the greeting that David gets. Because Nabal, according to the passage, is surly and mean, or as I read, harsh and badly behaved.

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In verse 3, you get the point. We've all met a man like this.

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He's like a buzzsaw. You go to him, and instead of treating you kindly and graciously, he effectively cuts you to pieces.

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And that is exactly what happens in this passage. But he is married to a woman who is altogether unlike him.

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Abigail is beautiful in every way, according to the text. And literally translated from the

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Hebrew, good of understanding. Verse 3, good of understanding. It's the same term for intelligent that was used of David just a few chapters prior in 1

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Samuel 18. So the writer of 1 Samuel, we don't know exactly who wrote this book, is subtly identifying

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Nabal with Saul. That's no bueno. That's not good. And David with Abigail.

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And that is the line that is blessed by God and favored of him.

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David heard, verse 4, that Nabal was shearing sheep. He had already acted kindly toward this man and his house.

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David's men had protected Nabal's men in the wilderness. Probably, we'll learn that in verse 16, because of the kin connection between David and Nabal.

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David communicates this in verses 5 and 6, as we read to his men to go on and say to this very rich man,

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Nabal. He gives a blessing to him. He wishes him long life through his men. He speaks of his protection of Nabal's men.

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And then he asks for provision from the feast day, verse 8, that Nabal is holding.

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David understands that in God's common grace, Nabal is richly blessed. And so he goes to him, having done him right in his treatment of Nabal's men and asks for some help, even as he is out in the wilderness.

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Some of us may be even experiencing a wilderness moment right now in your life. That's where David is.

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David literally lives far from where he will eventually be king. And he needs help.

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He needs help. He's going to basically a broader family member and asking for help.

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You may have had that experience in your own life. You may have gone to people when you needed help and you were in a desperate place.

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That's where David is. He doesn't have food for his men and his relative does not meet the need.

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David tries to emphasize the connection that you see there. Look with me, the end of verse 8, to your son,

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David. Again, this connection, like, please help me. But Nabal is not a kind man.

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Nabal does not know the Lord. That's what's most significant about him.

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He has a cold heart. He has probably a cold vision of God.

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A cold heart yields a cold man and a cold man freezes what he touches.

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This is quite a picture of just how harsh the human heart can be. It's not a pretty picture, is it?

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We move to our second scene, verses 9 through 13. David readies for war.

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David readies for war. Verse 9. When David's young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David and then they waited.

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And Nabal answered David's servants. Who is David? Who's the son of Jesse?

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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've killed for my shears and give it to men who come from I do not know where.

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

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

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And every man of them strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword.

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And about 400 men went up after David while 200 remained with the baggage.

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As we see here, David's young men communicated the request of David, a warm man, not a cold one.

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This was not a small thing. David was a major figure among the tribe of Judah at this time.

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He had slain Goliath himself. Saul had slain his thousands. David had slain his ten thousands.

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So David is not some unknown guy. But that's exactly, did you see? That's exactly how

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Nabal treats him. Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There's many servants these days breaking away from their masters.

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What Nabal is doing is he is trying to cut David down to size. David is a nobody, verse 10.

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David has acted rashly and usurped rightful authority going against King Saul, verse 10.

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Nabal is a benevolent master and David is again a nobody. Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I've killed for my shearers,

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Nabal says, and give it to these nobodies? That's what Nabal says. Nabal presents himself as if he is kind and generous.

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He is no such thing. But he treats David as if David is in the wrong here.

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This is how the world goes in a fallen realm, isn't it? Up is down, down is up.

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Do you feel this today in 2024? You feel like for doing good, you sometimes reap evil?

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It's hard to be a Christian, isn't it? It's hard to be a follower of God. Breaking news alert.

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It always has been. It always has been. It is for David. Following Christ now in the new covenant era, trusting in Christ as your

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Savior does not mean that your life is necessarily going to get easier.

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Does not mean you're going to opt out of suffering like one of those terrible email lists that you get subscribed to and you have no idea how you get on this email list and then you try to opt out 50 times and it never works.

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Is there somebody somewhere on this planet I could fly to and get out of this email list?

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I get notices for a haircutting place that I went to back in Illinois about 16 years ago.

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I've never managed to get off the mail list from haircuts by Steve. So I'm with you,

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Steve. One day I hope to get a haircut again and bring all this to fruition. There's no opt out button in all seriousness from suffering.

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You can't click it. None of us can. Oh, we sneer at Osteen. Osteen's bad and Osteen has terrible theology.

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But aren't we prone just a little bit to our own form of prosperity theology?

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Are we prone to think, I'm following God. God, I'm following You. Why is this so hard?

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Why is this challenge not resolving? Why is this family difficulty persisting?

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Why can't I get past the struggles that I'm facing? Are You even a good

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God? Can I even trust You? It's natural to ask those questions and feel those things. And the

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Psalms even give us a vocabulary to engage God and even, if you will, wrestle with God to some degree.

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But fundamentally, don't get mistaken. Don't get it twisted. To follow God often means your life gets harder, not easier.

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David sees red. Every man strap on his sword. He rages.

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David is a fearsome warrior. He is a military commander. He knows how to kill.

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He knows how to lead men into battle. That is precisely what he is doing here.

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Here's the irony. David is tempted to be like Nabal in this scene.

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Did you pick that up? Nabal is harsh. Nabal had these gracious young men come to him asking for help.

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And he basically slapped them in the face on the spot. He reacted in intemperate anger.

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How does David respond to what Nabal said? Does he go, oh, okay, we'll let there be peace in the midst of us?

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No, no, no, no, no. Many of us men understand this response. David gets wronged.

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He is profoundly dishonored here. And how does he respond? He responds by saying, blood is going to run in Israel today.

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And this is Satan's temptation to us. Satan is always offering us mimetic temptation.

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What that means is Satan wants us to imitate him. Satan wants us to imitate those who are walking in Satan's ways.

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If we bite the lure and swallow the hook, then we act like Satan, not like Christ.

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That's what is happening here. The rightful king of Israel soon to be enthroned is tempted to act just like the wicked man who has wronged him.

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This is true, not simply in David's life. This is true, not simply in the lives of men. This is true in the lives of all of us.

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Satan loves to do this. Satan loves to try to get you as a Christian to act like the world.

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That's what he's desperate to do. David was wronged here, but David's rage led him away from wisdom.

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David let his feelings talk and he let his heart lead him, not the truth of God.

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And because of this, David is about to shed blood like a stream. Third scene, verses 14 to 22.

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Abigail was wise. Abigail was wise.

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Verse 14, but one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, behold,

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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 suffered no harm.

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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.

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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.

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And he is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him. Then Abigail made haste, took 200 loaves and two skins of wine and five sheep already prepared and five sayas, a parched grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and 200 cakes of figs and laid them on donkeys.

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And she said to her young men, go on before me, behold, I come after you. But she did not tell her husband

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Nabal. And as she rode on the donkey and came down under cover of the mountain, behold,

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David and his men came down toward her and she met them. Now David had said, surely in vain have

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I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him.

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And he has returned me evil for good. God do so to the enemies of David and more also if by morning,

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I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him. Now that's a passage.

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Tell me the Bible's boring and let's see if you're right. This is not boring. This is like a movie, isn't it?

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It's a very intense one. David responds in fury. David again has been wronged, but wow has

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David let Nabal push his buttons. Thankfully, there is a fourth unnamed character in this story.

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We don't know the fourth character's name. See that in verse 14. One of the young men.

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This young man in God's providence saves everybody's life and saves

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David from probably the worst sin of his life.

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At the very least, one of them right up there at the top with Uriah and all that unfolded there.

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There's a fourth unnamed person. This person, we don't know who it is.

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So can't speculate too far, can we? But who knows if this young man from Nabal's household ever went on to do anything else.

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Perhaps this young man thought, my life is very simple and I don't really have a big role to play in the story of things and that sort of thing.

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But then this occurs and he goes to Abigail. This young man knows that Abigail is wise, doesn't he? He knows that Abigail is a wise woman, a temperate woman, a woman who's a thinker.

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She's not like Nabal. She's not a worthless woman as this man is a worthless man. And so this young unnamed man plays a key role, a huge role in biblical history, in the history of David the king.

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And I submit to you, that is tremendously encouraging for everyone in here, including young men.

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It is not the case that you have no role to play in the way things go. God appoints all sorts of unsuspecting characters in the history of his people to play pivotal roles.

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This is a pivotal role. Brothers and sisters, you have no idea how standing for God's truth and preaching

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God's gospel and even, let's simplify it, just saying a word of caution, a word of wisdom to someone, you have no idea what effect that might have in your life, their life, the lives of others.

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You might have a single four or five sentence conversation with somebody and it turns them back from the abyss.

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This unnamed young man helps save the day. But so too does

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Abigail. Abigail intuitively understands, she's a wise, godly woman, that this is trouble, that David is not going to be easily turned away.

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He is an utterly fearless warrior of Israel and he is not going to be easily stopped.

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So she assembles whatever feast she can. David has not just David coming, but 400 warriors coming.

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I mean, this would have made a pounding on the hills as we read in that passage I just did.

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David came down, it says in verse 20, and you would have heard the thunder of these warriors coming.

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David is riding in the heat of vengeance. He's sworn an oath to destroy the man he calls in verse 21, this fellow.

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He regards his past kindness as in vain. Did you see that in verse 21? In vain have

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I guarded all that Nabal has. David's men have been a wall to the young men of Nabal.

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They have protected these young men when there are enemies all around God's people.

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This is a little picture of what we talked about some in the conference this weekend. You can go back and listen to the sessions if you want.

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We talked about men needing to be protectors in evil days. Men needing to stand up and take the lead in protecting women and children.

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Men not sending women and their wives to do their hard work for them. Men not being the one when there's a bump in the night who say, sweetie, you go downstairs.

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No, men being the ones who step forward and go out. And we need an army of godly men today in this society, in this culture, in this community.

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We need men who will step up and protect. And the culture will tell you if you have that instinct that you're toxic and you're overly aggressive and you're a bad man.

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You're the kind of man we're getting rid of. The patriarchy is over, bro. So just sit down and lean back.

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This is the kind of man we desperately need. We need protectors.

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But even protectors have a greater need themselves. They need the forgiveness of God.

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David has lost sight of wisdom in this moment. He regards his past kindness being a wall to these young men to protect them as in vain.

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When we respond rashly, we come to quick conclusions. Wisdom is measured.

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Wisdom is textured. When you're acting in wisdom, you give yourself time to think and process and sort things out.

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As a man, it's a really good thing to have some conversations with others, particularly if you have been wronged as David has.

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It's a good thing to try to talk these things through. In marriage, it's a good thing not to respond, man or woman alike to one another in the heat of passion.

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It's a good thing to try to be calm and wise. But David, again, has lost sight of these things in this scene.

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This leads to our fourth movement. Verses 23 to 31. Abigail honored

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David. Verse 23. When Abigail saw David, she hurried and got down from the donkey and fell before David on her face and bowed to the ground.

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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.

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Let not my Lord regard this worthless fellow, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he.

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Nabal means fool in Hebrew. Nabal is his name and folly is with him. But I, your servant, did not see the young men of my

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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 guilt and from saving with your own hand, now then let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my

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Lord be as Nabal and now let this present that your servant has brought to my Lord be given to the young men who follow my

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Lord. Please forgive the trespass of your servant for the Lord will certainly make my

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Lord a sure house. Because my Lord, David, is fighting the battles of the

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Lord and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live. If men rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my

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Lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living and the care of the Lord your God and the lives of your enemies.

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He shall sling out, sling out. As from the hollow of a sling and when the

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Lord has done to my Lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you and has appointed you prince over Israel, my

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Lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my

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Lord working salvation himself. And when the

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Lord has dealt well with my Lord, then remember your servant.

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Extraordinary passage. Absolutely extraordinary. Does the wisdom of women, godly women matter?

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Tremendously. This is the longest speech by a woman in the Old Testament. The longest section of speech.

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This, what I just read, which most of us have never heard preached. This is dripping with wisdom.

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Dripping with the right way to deal with this situation. Abigail here goes against every imaginable cultural code.

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She goes out without talking to Nabal. She shouldn't talk to Nabal. That ain't gonna go well. She goes out to talk to another man who is married in the middle of the desert.

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She intercedes with a warrior soldier who has 400 men behind him.

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She takes on, did you see this? She takes on responsibility for Nabal's harsh, wicked action, which she had nothing to do with.

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She calls David not to enter into blood guilt, but to hold back his hand from vengeance and violence.

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She says in verse 26, something that technically hasn't happened. The Lord has restrained you from blood guilt.

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Mmm, David's not trying to be restrained from blood guilt. David's trying to take it on.

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He is trying to shed blood as I have been trying to say. Abigail is doing what a godly woman does with a man in a tough situation.

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A helper, a woman is helper. She's appealing to the better part of him.

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She's saying in so many words, you don't wanna do this. You really, really don't wanna.

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She's not going full feminist Karen in the streets with a bullhorn, okay?

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She's not screaming at David and dressing him down and humiliating him and telling him he's such an idiot, toxic man.

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She's not doing what many, sadly, in our culture do today. She's not doing that one bit.

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She's respectful to him. She honors him. She speaks graciously to him.

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She's a godly woman. She respects his authority multiple times in the passage.

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She doesn't set herself up as his authority. She doesn't talk down to him like he's a little child. She doesn't diminish him.

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She doesn't whittle away at him. She doesn't make any passive aggressive comments at him. What a godly woman this is.

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What godly communication this is. But she also speaks directly, doesn't she? She's saying, you don't wanna do this.

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You don't wanna shed this blood. They're at the end. My Lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience if you stop this for having shed blood without cause.

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Without you, David, trying to work salvation yourself. Whoo, that's some strong coffee right there.

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Don't try to work salvation yourself. So she's not rude in her manner.

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She respects him as a man. And women, godly women do this to godly men.

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The culture of a church should look completely different than the culture of the world. Men to women, women to men.

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It totally should by the power of the Spirit. We all fail in this, men and women alike. But Abigail is giving you, godly women, a blueprint for how to deal with us men when we are not in a good state.

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And it doesn't look like, you know, dressing down in a feminist way or something like that. It looks like a gracious but clear communication.

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We talked about this a little bit in the conference. We talked about how in a marriage, in a family, in different situations, what is so often needed is for communication to go from zero or one and get dialed up to like 50 to 55.

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You need a lot of good communication. We need to talk things out, husband to wife, wife to husband, father to child, child to father, mother to child, child to mother, and everybody in between, child to child, church member to church member.

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We gotta talk things out. This is a communicative passage. It shows us the power, the

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God -given power of communication. If you're in a tough spot in your family, here's just a quick application.

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Try to talk. You can't always make it happen. Sometimes people shut it down. Sometimes people don't wanna talk to you. Sometimes people are proud and stony -hearted and the bridges have been burned or whatever it may be, but if there is still the possibility of communication,

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I would say to you, man and woman alike, look at what Abigail does and look at how powerful.

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You wanna talk about power? Look at how powerful, gracious, wise,

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God -honoring speech is because, fifth,

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David hears Abigail. Verses 32 to 35. And David said to Abigail, blessed be the

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Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me. Blessed be your discretion and blessed be you who have kept me this day from blood guilt and from working salvation with my own hand for as surely as the

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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.

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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.

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See, I have obeyed your voice and I have granted your petition. This also is extraordinary.

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This is so cool. It's a technical theological term. David is a warrior.

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He is made that way by God. In the Bible, warriors are commended. We need warriors.

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Nowadays, we're not called to build a civic nation like Israel, a theonomistic reality.

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That's not our primary calling, though we do need soldiers and warriors in a civilizational sense.

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But in the church, to advance the kingdom of Christ, to advance the gospel, we don't take up sword fundamentally and go to war.

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But we do see that this warrior spirit transfers into the

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New Testament with Jesus, the divine warrior, coming to destroy the works of the devil.

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1 John 3 .8. My point is this, we needed warriors then and we need warriors now.

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But in terms of the church and the advancement of the gospel, we need spiritual warriors.

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Men, think of yourself as a warrior for Christ. Not fighting against flesh and blood.

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Certainly not fighting against your wife and your children. That's not what I mean. But see yourself in this kind of role.

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A man, multidimensional, who is pursuing the glory of Jesus Christ and who wakes up every morning and wants to put his boots on and fight the kingdom of darkness afresh in the power of the

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Spirit. Think of yourself as a spiritual warrior and stop believing the lies of the culture about who you are as a man.

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Rise and be ennobled by the word of God. Be ennobled by a man like David.

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This example. But know what kind of a warrior David shows himself to be here.

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He's not the kind of warrior that our world thinks is cool in action movies, who just kills everybody.

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He is the kind of warrior who will go to war when he needs to go to war. Called by God.

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But who will also call a halt to 400 soldiers.

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Stop. Stop on a dime. One woman on a donkey. 400 soldiers.

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About to kill people. And go, what did you say? Huh? What are you saying about your husband?

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Your husband's in a ball? And Abigail will fall on her face before the future king of Israel.

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And she will entreat him not to shed blood. And David, unlike the wicked man in the ball, will listen.

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David will show humility. David will show self -control.

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David will show that he is not threatened. He is not an insecure man. He is not threatened by a woman speaking wisdom.

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He instead, it turns out, welcomes it. What a picture of godly womanhood.

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What a picture of godly manhood. All of it driven by God. All of the glory going not to Abigail or David, but to God.

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This is a remarkable scene. We men who want to be warriors in the name of King Jesus, rightly understood, we need to see this.

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We need this kind of passage. We're hearing today from some voices in the church, for example, that the days are so dark that the times of trying to cultivate humility and gentleness and self -control, that's over.

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We used to try to do that in better days, but now we're in a negative world. And so what we need are men who are courageous and they don't even care about carefulness.

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And that is not true. What we need are men who are courageous. First Corinthians 16, 13, act like men, but also men who are godly.

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We need men who bear the fruit of the spirit. I saw a little picture of this. Got to hasten to a conclusion here.

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Sometime ago, about a year ago, taken from the withdrawal in Afghanistan.

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That is one of the worst debacles in American history and was needless. But anyway, there was a picture of an

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American warrior, a soldier with a very fearsome looking machine gun propped up against the wall right here.

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He's sitting down and he's got an Afghan baby in his arm. And he clearly is a father.

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Fathers recognize fathers, game recognizes game. And the game of holding your baby in your arm in love, and the child is totally asleep, just conked out in this strong man's arm.

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That's the kind of man we need. We need those kind of men. We need men who will fight evil and won't send their wives to do it.

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But we also need men who are gentle, men who are kind, men who listen, men who can hear a wife speaking into their life and aren't threatened by it.

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And that's the example we get from David. That leads to our sixth and final scene. The Lord strikes

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Nabal down. I won't read verses 36 to 44 in sum, but I will summarize very quickly.

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Verse 38, about 10 days later, the Lord struck

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Nabal and he died. So this wicked man living in pride and not repenting of his sin and not hearing wisdom is struck down by God himself.

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The Bible makes it plain. But David hears this and David sends to Abigail to take her as his wife, verse 39, and they end up married.

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And so Abigail ends this amazing chapter, no longer married to Nabal, but married to the future king of Israel.

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And so this is an absolutely spellbinding passage in the

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Old Testament. And I have just four brief takeaways for you before we conclude.

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I'll do these in quick fashion. Four takeaways from this whole chapter. First, we need to see, all of us, the foolishness of pride.

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Man and woman alike, boy and girl, we need to see the foolishness of pride. When we are proud, we don't listen.

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And when we don't listen, not a whole lot of good that can be done in our lives, right? So the fundamental form of listening we all need to enact by the grace of God is to listen to God in his word.

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That is the voice we most need to hear. Yes, this is Gideon Bible. Thank you, Gideons, for the

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Bible. So let us, in reading a passage like this, let's just, man, talk at lunch, talk later in the day with your family, with friends in the car, whoever it is.

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Talk about fighting pride together by the grace of God. Don't do this in your own strength. I'm not saying just be less proud.

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No, I'm saying we are proud. We are proud, all of us are. And what we need to do is we need to go to God and say,

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God, I am proud. I'm still proud. I've been a Christian for 40 years. I'm still battling pride. Help me to listen better.

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Isn't it amazing how hard it is to listen? Something breaks down in your family and you realize somebody said something about that to you roughly 117 times.

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They said it. You just didn't hear it. It's true of all of us. So let's fight pride and let's pray to listen.

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Second, we need to honor the beauty of feminine wisdom. We need to honor the beauty of feminine wisdom.

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There's a movement today to a noble man, thankful for that, trying to do a tiny bit of that myself. But you can overdo that, actually.

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You can do that in a bad way to speak more carefully. You can do it so that all you really need is men to lead.

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You need men to lead. That's biblical. That's biblical complementarity. Home, church, society, to a serious degree.

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And yet, God gave Eve to Adam as a helper pre -fall.

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God looked at Adam and said, before any sin is in the world, here's your helper. Abigail shows us the power of a godly helper.

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A woman speaking into things. Men, we will ultimately lead by God's grace in our homes.

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But don't feel insecure one bit about saying, what do you think about this?

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How do you think we should handle this? And if she says something really wise, which happens an annoying amount of time in my house,

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I can say, like, I did not think of that. That's really good. Then don't feel insecure about taking it one bit either.

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Take it. That's what David does. David takes her advice. All those warriors who stopped on a dime, stop.

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They don't go and they don't kill. They stop. They go back home. He takes her advice.

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So the world wants us to fight one another as men and women, right? The devil desperately wants men and women to hate one another and fight one another, and it's a zero -sum game.

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The patriarchy used to dominate women. Now we're going to dominate men as feminists. Satan loves that. That's Satan's work.

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That's one of his chief projects that he is running. Don't follow him.

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In the Bible, men and women work together for the good of others and the glory of God. Third, let's pray that God would make us quick to hear and slow to anger.

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Quick to hear, slow to anger. And I target that in particular at my fellow men.

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Slow to anger. Social media helps us all get really mad really quick, doesn't it?

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Careful with that. We all need to be careful. Fourth and finally, we need to affirm that the

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Lord blesses the humble but strikes down the proud. That's what James 4, 6 says.

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God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Do you know the foremost grace that God gives?

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There is a better intercessor. There is a better mediator for you and me.

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There is one who has come between us and the devil and who has not simply stopped a pack of 400 blood -hungry soldiers but has warred against the devil himself.

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Jesus Christ knows that we are a fool in our sin and Jesus Christ stepped in for us and spread his arms and died on a

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Roman cross so we could be completely forgiven of our sin. And so Jesus is ultimately the mediator we need.

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Jesus is ultimately the one who comes and speaks wisdom to us and his wisdom is many things in many directions but it is fundamentally, do not keep going that way.

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Do not go the way of destruction. Run to me. Run and be forgiven of all your sin.

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Come and hear of a grace that washes sinners clean and they will never be unclean again.

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Jesus is the greater mediator we need. Jesus is ultimately the fulfillment of this passage.

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He is the greater David who steps in for sinners like us.

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So find your hope and your joy and your salvation in King Jesus who speaks peace to us.

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Let's pray. Father, thank you for this incredible passage.

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I pray that we would be those who live out the patterns we have seen here and I pray above even the details of wisdom that we've tried to cover very briefly and inadequately in this humble little sermon,

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I pray that above all that we would see the glory of the Savior King Jesus who stopped us on the way to our destruction, did not just call a halt to it but suffered and bled and died for sinners like us.

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I pray that in this room, all those who already are forgiven of their sin, I pray that you would strengthen them in this truth and I pray that those in this room who do not yet know

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King Jesus would trust him as Lord and Savior today. Thank you that his blood washes all our past sin, our present sin and our future sin.