Fellowship in the Word

Jason Gebhardt: Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bil Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

Bil Gebhardt: There is a contagious power of sacrificial kindness. It changes everybody. At that camp, what happened? It was not just two Scottish soldiers. Everyone in this camp started changing. They saw the sacrificial kindness. You see, that is the whole point. Just imagine if the Church of Jesus Christ in our country was known as this whole group of people that are sacrificially kind to everybody. What do you think would happen? Is our reputation among everybody like that? Not even close. We are much more judgmental of everybody than we are sacrificially kind to people. We are not that way.

Jason Gebhardt: Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bil Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church, located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let’s join Pastor Bil Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God’s Word meets our world.

Bil Gebhardt: Now remember this: this is a servant of Nabal who is going to go talk to Nabal's wife. He is so confident that she understands the truth about Nabal, he said, "He is worthless." It is an interesting thing: that word "worthless" is Belial, and it means to be worthless, useless, or without any goodness at all. That is who he is. The servant says he is worthless, you cannot talk to him at all, and I wish we could have talked to you earlier.

Now Abigail comes into the picture, and first we will see her actions of what she does here. Then Abigail hurried and took 200 loaves of bread, two jugs of wine, five sheep already prepared, five measures of roasted grain, 200 clusters of raisins, and 200 cakes of figs, and loaded them on donkeys. Now let me ask you, ladies: how many of you could get 200 loaves of bread together without going to Rouses? I mean, they must have some real means here.

She got 200 loaves, and then she has two jugs of wine. But that word "jugs" there is interesting. They are 13 to 20 gallons each. So possibly 40 gallons of wine. Now David has 600 men, but I just want you to see that. Five sheep already prepared, five measures of roasted grain—and that could be somewhere between 40 to up to 200 liters of grain that she already had roasted—100 clusters of raisins, and even the last one, 200 cakes of figs, which is *debelah*, and *debelah* means pressed down and condensed figs. She put this all together immediately.

That is her action. Then she gives her instructions. She said to the young men, "Go on before me. Behold, I am coming after you." But she did not tell her husband Nabal. And why? Because he is a fool. Please understand that. It came about as she was riding on her donkey coming down to the hidden part of the mountain, and behold, David and his men were coming down towards her, so she met them.

And David had said, "Surely in vain I have guarded all that this man has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him. He has returned me evil for good." Does that make you mad? It made David mad. Have you ever done something really good for someone and gotten evil in return? That is why David said, "These are fighting words to me."

Now understand, there is a difference from David's point of view. Saul has been mistreating David terribly, but David will keep telling Saul, "You are the anointed king. You are the king of Israel." This guy is just a rich fool. I would not do anything to Saul—I withhold my hand from Saul—but I am going to take this guy down. And not just him; I am going to kill every male that is under his authority. I am going to kill them all at once, all because he insulted me.

May God do so to the enemies of David and more so, if by morning I leave as much as one male of any of them who belong to him. We are going to kill them all because he insulted me. When Abigail saw David, she hurried and dismounted her donkey. She fell on her face before David and bowed herself to the ground. She fell at his feet and said, "On me alone, my lord, be the blame."

Now that is a very fine... she gets off, she bows on her knees, and she puts her forehead on the ground. She is going to call herself, by the way... there is a bad translation in the New American Standard: "a maidservant." That doesn't even sound bad. She is a slave. That is the Hebrew word: slave. She is going to call herself a slave six times in this passage. "I am your slave." And 14 times she is going to say to him, "You are the lord. You are my lord; I am your slave." But notice what she does that is just remarkable. Not only is she intelligent and beautiful: "On me alone be the blame. Whatever you are going to do to them, do it to me." Would you do that, especially for a fool? You see what I mean? That is the most amazing thing about Abigail. It's amazing way beyond her beauty and her intelligence: "I will take the guilt myself."

"Please," she said, "let your slave speak to you, and listen to the words of your slave. Please." Wow. And then she gets really kind of interesting here now. She starts picking up on something, and she wants to tell David a whole view she has. "Please do not let my lord pay attention to this worthless man." By the way, that's her husband. Now, ladies, I understand how you work. You cannot go talking to your friends and calling your husband a worthless man and then say, "But it's biblical! They heard it in the Bible!" No. Your husband may be a worthless man, but I do not think that is the verse that you want to use to get you there.

She said, "This worthless man Nabal, for as his name is, so he is." This worthless man, fool, that is what he is. He is a fool. Nabal is his name and folly is his game. And the best Hebrew translation of the word "folly," because it matches fool, but the best Hebrew translation is "stupidity." And stupidity is his game. That is who he is. "But I, your slave, did not see the young men of my lord whom you sent. I wish you would have come to me. I sure wish you would have come to me and not to him."

"Now therefore, my lord, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, since the Lord has restrained you from shedding blood and from avenging yourself by your own hand, now then, let your enemies and those who seek evil against my lord be as Nabal." In other words, anyone who would try to mess with the anointed of God is a fool, just like Nabal did.

She said, "Now let this gift which your maidservant has brought to my lord be given to your young men who accompany my lord. Please forgive the transgression of your slave. Forgive my sin." Now you know the story. Was it her? She took the place. Was it the Scottish prisoner that said, "I did it"? He took the place.

She said, "For the Lord will certainly make for my lord an enduring house because my lord is fighting the battles for the Lord, and evil will not be found in you all your days. Should anyone rise up to pursue you and seek your life, then the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living with the Lord your God, but the lives of your enemies He will sling out as from the hollow of a sling."

Now do not miss that. Here is what she is saying. This is the only time you ever find this kind of reference. She said, "If anyone really bothers you, you know what my Lord will do? He will put a stone in a sling, and He will take them out." Does she know anything about a stone in a sling? Does David know anything about a stone in a sling? Yes. And Abigail goes right to that.

"And when the Lord does for my lord according to all the good that He has spoken concerning you, and appoints you ruler over Israel, this will not cause grief or a troubled heart to my lord, both by having shed blood without cause and by my lord having avenged himself. When the Lord deals well with my lord, then remember your slave." Here is what she is paraphrasing: "Please do not try to take vengeance on your own. Please, you are above that. You are the next king of Israel. Do not do this. Let the Lord be the Lord."

Now, I will give you an idea of how this works. Take a good July day in New Orleans, the sun is out, no clouds, and put an ice cube on the sidewalk. What happens? It melts. What happened to David? He melted. Yep, she had the cool words for his hot head. It totally changed him. Just completely. Notice his first response after hearing that. Instead of saying, "Well, if I am the next king of Israel, who are you, some woman, talking to me like...?" No, no. David said, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who sent you this day to meet me. And blessed be your discernment, and blessed be you who have kept me this day from bloodshed, from the avenging of myself by my own hand. I bless the Lord for sending you. I bless you for talking to me. I give you the blessing."

Here is the one thing he wants to make sure she understands though. "Nevertheless, as the Lord God of Israel lives, who has restrained me from harming you, unless you had come quickly to meet me, surely there would not have been left to Nabal until morning light as much as one male." I would have killed them all. He just wants to say it; I still would have done it all, but you stopped me. So David received from her hand what she had brought him and said to her, "Go up to your house in peace. See, I have listened to you and granted your request."

Wow, this is great. But Nabal is still around. So Abigail came to Nabal and behold, he was holding a feast in his house like the feast of a king. No other way to do it. And Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk. This sounds like a guy like Nabal: he is drunk, having a big feast. Wow.

Well, it says she did not tell him anything at all until the morning light. But understand something about this: she does not fear Nabal, and she did not fear David. She just fears the Lord. Remember in Proverbs, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of what? Wisdom. This woman has wisdom beyond belief. That she is not afraid of Nabal... notice what happens. In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things. I love this. And it says his heart died within him, and he became like a stone.

Oh my goodness. Now there are all kinds of possibilities here as to what in the world that could have possibly meant. The NASB says his heart died. Other translations say he had heart failure. One said he had a heart attack. One said he had a stroke. One said he had a fatal shock, and the MSG said that he had a heart attack and went into a coma. All that is pretty much the truth. What happened? He had a moment of realization: David would have killed them all. And he would have known that, and she would have told him David said he was going to kill every one of you.

Now, notice the next verse. And about ten days later, the Lord struck Nabal, and he died. He probably never came to again. Who took vengeance on Nabal? The Lord did. It was justice served, yes, but it was not by David, but by Nabal, on that basis. So we have an appeal to Abigail's wisdom. We have Abigail showing off all of her brains and beauty and her wisdom and her spirituality. But now something happens that is really interesting. Her selfless, righteous behavior is rewarded by God immediately. In fact, for some of you, just the way you think, you'll say, "I think that is too immediate."

Okay, here we go. When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, "Blessed be the Lord who has pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal and has kept back His servant from evil. The Lord has also returned the evildoing of Nabal on his own head." Then David sent a proposal to Abigail to take her as his wife. That is pretty fast. I mean, what? Yeah. Look guys, if you see something that good... you see, what didn't she have? Nothing. I mean, think about it: she had every asset a person could have, and she was deeply spiritual, and courageous, and wise. And it didn't say he sent someone to ask her if she would marry him. They don't do that. He said, "Just take her as my wife."

Now I know your sensibilities are gone, so you cannot argue with me. I will let you argue with Chuck Swindoll. Chuck wrote this about this. He said some might question the timing: Nabal's funeral was barely over, and he says and these two have known each other only for a few minutes. He says do not forget, though, that this is not the 21st century and it is not about urbanite and suburbanite lovers getting married. Marriage in those days was motivated much more by honor and duty than by love. Ancient Near Eastern society was not kind to widows, even rich ones, and life on the southern frontier of Israel was a dangerous place for anyone not equipped to fight back. David saw a widow in need who also happened to be uncommonly good and an insightful woman. Abigail saw a protector to preserve her estate, who also happened to be a man after God's own heart. I believe this match was totally made in heaven. Wow.

Now you wonder, maybe I don't, but I do, when you read about how horrible Nabal was and how great Abigail was, do you wonder why in the world she married that guy in the first place? It's real simple. It was arranged by her parents because he was rich. So this was not her doing. This had nothing to do with her doing. And so Nabal is now out of the way. So it just sounds like, "Wow, this is really kind of neat."

Well, let me go on. When the servants of David came to Abigail in Carmel, they spoke to her and said, "David has sent us to you to take you as his wife." She doesn't even respond. She arose, she bowed her face to the ground, and she said, "Behold, your maidservant is a slave to wash the feet of my lord's servants." To the guys that came, she immediately bowed to the ground and said, "Let me wash your feet. I am your slave." These were just the messengers. What does that tell you about her? Her humility. It's just unreal, this woman's humility.

And then Abigail quickly arose and rode a donkey with her, and her five maidens to attend her. That is interesting: she had five different maidens attending her, and that is the word *naarah*, and it means attendants, and almost always young women. Listen, it's not common for a woman in that world to have five maidservants who would be her servants, young women. What does that tell you again? She is rich. She had five of these girls go with her, and she followed the messengers of David, and she became his wife.

See, and that's the part where you want to say, "Wow, what a great story. And they lived happily ever after." Not so fast, the story is not even over. Next verse: David had also taken Ahinoam of Jezreel, and they both became his wives. So he lost Michal. This is David and Solomon. Now these were all arranged. Now Saul had given Michal, his daughter, David's wife, to Palti the son of Laish, who was in Gallim.

But here is the whole point here. You see these different things. What do we learn from this story? There are just a few things I want to say. One is this: from God's point of view, humility can overcome pride. You see, humility can win the day. Kindness can overcome foolishness and stupidity. That is what Abigail proves. This is just a woman. Remember, a woman in that world is not as highly esteemed as a woman in our world. But this woman really is esteemed high by everybody who has ever talked to her. Even the servant that went and talked to her, he knew what kind of woman she was. That is why he said, "I have to come and talk to you. We have to do something about this." That is who she was.

Secondly, there is a contagious power of sacrificial kindness. It changes everybody. At that camp, what happened? It was not just two Scottish soldiers. Everyone in this camp started changing. They saw the sacrificial kindness. You see, that is the whole point. And think about this: just imagine if the Church of Jesus Christ in our country was known as this whole group of people that are sacrificially kind to everybody. What do you think would happen? By the way, is that our reputation among everybody? Not even close. We are much more judgmental of everybody than we are sacrificially kind to people. We are not that way. But sacrificial kindness is really contagious.

And the third and most important point is this: her choice points to something. It points to the cross of Jesus Christ. That is what she is. She is a perfect type of Jesus Christ. A wonderful, amazing type. Abigail was willing to sacrifice her life for her household. Jesus was willing to sacrifice His life for the world. That is what they have in common.

Then Lucado writes this: "Just as Abigail placed herself between David and Nabal, Jesus placed Himself between God and us. Just as Abigail volunteered to be punished for Nabal's sins, Jesus allowed Heaven to punish Him for your sins and mine. Just as Abigail turned away the anger of David, Christ has shielded us from the wrath of God. Though healthy, He took our disease upon Himself, and though diseased, we who accept His offer are pronounced by Him healthy. The result: more than just being pardoned, we are declared innocent. We enter heaven not because of our healed hearts, but because of His heart."

What a difference there. This is a story of Abigail. After going through it this week, my thought is this: Abigail is one of the most impressive people in the entire Bible to me. I know very few men in the Bible at all that would ever do what Abigail did. Abigail was willing to give her life for someone for whom she had none of the responsibility for the sin. Now she was rewarded by God, but I think Abigail is one of the most impressive people in the Bible. So my final view of Abigail is simply this: Abigail, what a gal.

Let's pray. Father, thank You for this story of this wonderful woman. Her heart, her wisdom, her insight. An amazing thing. She does things that very, very few people in the entire Bible were able to do. She was willing to suffer and die for something she had no responsibility in. And the person most responsible was a fool and an evil person. But that is exactly what Christ did. He died for us. And in our own way, separated from God, we are all Nabal. We are all fools. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, not even one. And Christ became the sin-bearer for each and every one of us so that we could be forgiven and that we could be called blameless or justified by a holy God. Father, thank You for the life of Christ and this morning, thank You for the life of this wonderful woman Abigail. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Jason Gebhardt: You've been listening to Pastor Bil Gebhardt on the radio ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or just with a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word, 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 70006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bil delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnoia.org. That's fbcnoia.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bil's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnoia.org. For Pastor Bil Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.