Abigail
Great People Of The Bible • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Greetings…
Theme: Great People Of The Bible.
Hope: To draw closer to God by learning from the various people God placed in his word to teach us lessons and grow our faith in him.
Today, we turn out attention to a small but fascinating account of a woman named Abigail.
We find her in 1 Samuel 25 as the very first account after the great prophet Samuel died (1 Samuel 25:1).
We find David and his 600 mighty men in the wilderness of Paran after fleeing king Saul’s wrath.
While there he comes across herdsmen of Nabal a rich man in the area.
2 And there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel.
David and his men do not harm the shepherds but rather protect them day and night.
The name “Nabal” actually means “fool” and God holds no punches with this reality either.
1 Samuel 25:3 (ESV)
3 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; he was a Calebite.
David sends 10 of his young men, on a Jewish feast day, to ask Nabal for provisions for the feast and to inform him that he and his men had taken care of Nabal’s servants.
Nabal lived up to the meaning of his name and refused to send provisions to David and his men calling David a “run-away servant” who didn’t deserve food that would otherwise go to his “own servants.”
This enraged David who gathered his men to “kill all of the males of Nabal’s house.
Thankfully there was a servant of Nabal’s that ran to let someone who might help know what was going on.
This is when we learn of this wise woman, Nabal’s wife, Abigail.
Let’s now consider how Abigail saved her husband and David from sin.
Abigail Saved Nabal
Abigail Saved Nabal
She Did Not Delay.
She Did Not Delay.
In 1 Samuel 25:18-19 we read…
18 Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves and two skins of wine and five sheep already prepared and five seahs of parched grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys. 19 And she said to her young men, “Go on before me; behold, I come after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.
Abigail did not worry or fret about the problem but took haste to face the problem head on.
She did not wait for David to come to her but went to him.
When we see our brother or sister acting foolish in anger and therefore in danger of committing sin we must take immediate action.
Jesus is clear, we should seek unity not allow matters of division to stand if at all possible.
23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison.
We also find that…
She Took Responsibility.
She Took Responsibility.
Abigail humbled herself before David (1 Samuel 25:23) and asked that the guilt be laid at her feet.
1 Samuel 25:24 (ESV)
24 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.”
Now, there is no doubt that this was her husband’s foolishness and therefore guilt but she is admitting her role in such.
We don’t know what role she played, maybe she had allowed her husbands foolishness with little to no attempt at helping him do better.
Whatever the reason she took responsibility and was trying to correct it.
We live in a society that seeks to avoid responsibility like it is the plague.
This is as human as humanity gets from even the beginning, if we remember Adam and Eve (Genesis 3).
Adam, “woman made me do it” while Eve said, “Satan made me do it.”
Summary
Summary
Because Abigail quickly set out to help with the problem Nabal had gotten himself in and had taking it upon herself to take responsibility for the situation, David spared Nabal’s life.
Abigal did not just save her husband’s life we also see how…
Abigail Saved David
Abigail Saved David
David Was About To Sin.
David Was About To Sin.
Abigail not only pointed out her husbands foolishness and took responsibility to fix it she also pointed out that what David was about to do was sinful.
Now what is so fascinating is how she does so, with humility and cunning in all reality.
She appeals to what she has heard of how the LORD is with David and wants him to live free from bloodguilt and the shedding of blood without cause.
1 Samuel 25:26 (ESV)
26 Now then, my lord, as the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, because the Lord has restrained you from bloodguilt and from saving with your own hand, now then let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be as Nabal.
1 Samuel 25:31 (ESV)
31 my lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord working salvation himself. And when the Lord has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant.
David responded as any “man after God’s own heart would.
32 And David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! 33 Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodguilt and from working salvation with my own hand! 34 For as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there had not been left to Nabal so much as one male.”
Summary
Summary
Abigail was able to help David come into his glory as king with the memory of sin caused by a moment of anger.
We need, like Abigail, to help people we know are about to sin to see the foolishness of what they are about to do so.
If people reject that help and advice that’s then on them.
12 and you say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! 13 I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors. 14 I am at the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation.”
Conclusion
Conclusion
Later that evening Nabal is throwing a party and is utterly drunk, not knowing how close he was to death by David’s hand.
Abigail waited until the morning when Nabal had “sobered up” to tell him how close he was to death.
It shocked him so much his heart weakened, he became like stone, and died ten days later (1 Samuel 25:36-38).
We need to be like Abigail, willing to help not just the righteous stay righteous but the foolish from themselves whenever possible.
Let us seek to “help all” be right before God.
Invitation
1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; 2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
32 “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.
8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.