We will open our eyes now to understand your word and to apply it to our lives in Christ's name. Amen. It's not a beautiful version of Psalm 1 that we've just sung. It's from that new Psalm book that I was telling you about, Psalms for today. And it's really one of the more beautiful ones there. So tune we all know as well, which helps, doesn't it? The Lord of God is life to choose. The will of God is joy to see. Oh David saw the will of God in the passage that we turn to this morning in 1 Samuel this evening in 1 Samuel chapter 25. I don't know how you regard politics. Certainly politics. Whatever one thinks of it is a very skillful business. Much of it is about winning friends and influencing people. Sometimes for good and sometimes for bad reasons. But by the time we get to 1 Samuel chapter 25 the future King David was already politically extremely skillful. He had not, you remember, harmed Saul physically in the previous chapter, the one we looked at last week. He refused to fight Saul. He was leaving Saul in God's hands. But meanwhile, he wasn't just sitting back doing nothing. David was operating with about 600 fighting men. And he was operating in the hill country south of Hebron about 25 to 30 miles south of modern day Jerusalem. The hills there go up to nearly 10,000 feet. And within what? Less than 20 miles it goes down to 1,000 feet below sea level. So it's a very, very rugged wilderness terrain. And he was operating in that area. He was counting on the fact that Saul couldn't be in all the places at the same time. There were Philistines to the west of him. There were other tribes to the east and from time to time Saul had to go and look after them. He couldn't always concentrate on trying to get David. Meanwhile, of course there were marauding nomadic tribes and peoples. And those people would come in and would attack particularly the small Israelite settlements. It certainly had shades of the modern political situation of today. So David and his men began to defend some of those Israelite settlements and farms in the hill areas and the mountain areas. And really that was an extraordinarily sensible thing to do politically. It meant that when eventually Saul's throne did become vacant, a large number of people in Judah would be ready to accept him as king. Because he was the one who'd been looking after them for the last few years anyway. In fact, the Hebron area became David's power base when he was king. And that was where he was first acknowledged as king. You may remember in 2 Samuel 2 verse 3. David in turn, of course, hoped that these people would respond warmly and help him feed his warriors. Feeding 600 warriors was not an easy task at the best of times and particularly not in the wilderness. So he relied on the support and the friendship of those he was defending. And he especially needed their support now that Samuel had died. The whole of Israel were told at the beginning of chapter 25, the whole of Israel mourned Samuel's passing. Who now would bring God's word to them? Who now would sought out Saul with all his paranoia and stupidity? Would David ever become king now that Saul that Samuel had died? David needed all the political expertise that he could summons. One of those whom David had defended was this chap naval. We read about him in that long chapter but quite an exciting and an interesting chapter I think to read right the way through. Naval's name was probably a nickname to suit his character. It simply meant foolishness. He was a wealthy farmer with thousands of sheep and goats. And after sharing time when Naval was having a celebration party, David sent his servants to see where the naval would share some of that food with his men. And as you know, naval refused in an extremely rude way calling David a rebel. And in doing that, of course, he was actually denying the Lord's calling of David. It's an important point to see that. That naval in calling David a rebel was actually denying God's calling of David. Well, David got very angry indeed. He decided to destroy naval and his whole family and take over his flocks and his wealth. What happened then in the rest of this passage is a wonderful testimony to the faithfulness of God to his chosen and anointed servant, David. As we look at the passage, we find that the faithful covenant God prevented David committing a dreadful sin. He provided David with a faithful and believing wife and he preserved David as the anointed king. He prevented David from committing a dreadful sin. He preserved, he provided David with a believing wife and then, of course, he preserved David to be the anointed king. What graciousness of God we see in this passage. And it's a graciousness as we'll see as we go on that God extends to all of us who know and love him. So let's look first at some of the characters of this story and see how God prevented a dreadful sin. First David was angry, very angry with naval and about to take judgment into his own hands. Now, this episode must strike us a strange. We've just read chapter 24. We've just seen this wonderful character David refuse to kill Saul, his enemy, because God is the one who brings vengeance and justice. You remember that from last week? David took a little bit of his robe off the bottom of Saul and even for that, cutting a bit of the robe while he slept, even for that David felt guilty. But he left it in the hands of God to take vengeance on Saul. So this is extremely strange because suddenly David's attitude is all together different. Perhaps he was hungry. Perhaps he was worried because of his hunger that the men in his group would turn against him. Perhaps he just longed to be part of the party that was going on down in the valley and he felt as future king maybe I ought to be invited to that. Anyway, something snapped in him, just as it does in us sometimes. How often we let our circumstances don't we rule our reactions to things and I'm sure this was what was going on in David at this stage. Somehow or other he was letting his circumstances affect his whole judgment. David's circumstances were at best uncomfortable but of course this did not justify the fact that now he was set on a course of sin. It was sin because vengeance belongs only to God. David knew that. We've just seen he knew that back in chapter 24. He wasn't ignorant of that. It was sin because he was burning with anger. It was sin because he had no right to demand anything of this man naval. It was sin because he was turning away from God and relying on God. His whole kinship of Israel was at stake in this passage. Would he go his own way? The mistake that Saul had made you remember? Or would he stay with God's way and rely on God to bring vengeance? rely on God to see his purposes fulfilled. Notice there's no mention of God at all. In David's desire for vengeance right the way through the whole of the first section of this chapter, God is not mentioned once. The only time he's mentioned at all is when David swears by God that he's going to kill naval. Then he uses the general word in Hebrew for God. He doesn't use the word Lord, the covenant Lord. It's just an oath that he's swearing there that he's going to kill naval. Well then into this passage is introduced to a Abigail. It is not the period of photographs. It would have been nice to see just how beautiful this woman was. She'd have been on the cover of Vogue maybe or something like that. Her beauty has picked out on three occasions in this chapter. Abigail was told of her husband's response to David, which was a response of disdain, a nasty, spiteful sort of response. And she set out to put things right. I wonder how many other times she had had to step in and put right the evil things her husband had done. I wonder whether the Bible doesn't tell us more with some of these characters. You sort of feel like you've really like to know them better as you read a bit about them. No doubt it has happened again and again that she had to step in for the foolishness of this man who was her husband. But here you see was a believing faithful wife. And she had an unbelieving and thoroughly evil husband. And yet she acts. She acts just as a believing wife in the Bible is expected to act. She sought no matter how he was with her. She sought to protect him. She had not left him. No doubt she dispaired of him regularly. But that was to be left in God's hands. Meanwhile, she had yet another crisis to deal with. And this was a big one. It was an army of 600 men about to come down and wipe them all out and her husband was drunk in the middle of a feast. Just look at the lovely figure of this woman. Abigail was humble, humble as a believer. Look at the way she talked to David through these verses. Especially verses 23 there to 25. There we see she was prepared to accept all responsibility for her husband's actions. The Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5, you remember, tells us that a husband should love his wife so much that he should be prepared to lay down his life for her. And here this woman was prepared to lay down her life for her husband. That was a very likely possibility as she set out. She didn't know that David would respond to the message she was about to give him. He had promised he'd sworn before God that he was going to come and kill a lot of them. She didn't know how he would respond. She was prepared to lay down her life to protect her husband, even though she knew that he was a fool and ill-natured as she put it to David in verse 25. The not only was Abigail humble, she was also wise. She was the one who introduces in this passage who introduced the Lord, the Covenant Lord, capital L-O-R-D. That one, Yahweh. She's the one who introduces him into the whole conversation and the whole situation. She realized that Yahweh, the Covenant God, was using her to stop David sinning. Look at verse 26. Now then, my Lord, as the Lord, the Covenant Lord lives, and as your soul lives, seeing the Lord has restrained you from blood guilt and from taking vengeance with your own hand, now then let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my Lord be as naval. She says, David, look, leave it in the hands of the Lord. She's assuming that he's going to turn round and accept what she says, quite a big assumption. But she says, look, let me appeal to the Covenant Lord. That's the one I appeal to. That's the one you know. He's your Lord. He's your Covenant Lord. What an amazing woman Abigail must have been. She wasn't necessarily academically inclined, but she was biblically wise. In other words, she loved and worshiped God. She saw him at the centre of everything that she did, and she was humble, and she was prepared to serve him wherever it took her. She was able to introduce Yahweh, the Lord, into her conversation, even when talking to the anointed king. And she knew that God would help David understand what she was saying. Now I wonder whether we have this same sort of biblical wisdom. Are we able to turn to the Covenant Lord with the same faith and understanding that Abigail had? I wonder how we would react if we'd had a marriage partner like that. Perhaps some of us do. How do we react? I wonder whether we would be prepared to stand up and call a sin a sin in a humble and yet quite definite way as this woman did to King David. Can we do it even in our own lives? Can we discern where we are disobeying the Lord and where we need to repent and to turn away from that chosen path of sin? Can we discern that for our own lives? Are we biblically wise as she was? But if Abigail was an amazing woman, look at the Lord in all this. Why should the Lord have bothered with David? I mean, what sort of king do you think he would be if he could so easily lose his temper just like that because some rather insignificant man had refused to give him some food? Of course, the Lord bothered because the work that he had begun in his chosen servant David, the Lord was determined to complete. The grace that he had brought to David when he called him back through the anointing of Samuel, you remember? The blessings and the promises that he'd been given, those would come about why. They would come about because God is always faithful. The covenant, Lord, is always faithful to his promises. That's what Abigail is drawing attention to, you see. The grace that he had brought to David, he was going to continue to give to make sure that David turned out as he wanted. God is always faithful. We may turn away. David may turn away, but God is faithful to his people. I'm sure that most of us here ask sometimes why God should bother with us? Why should he bother with us when we sin as we do? I wonder whether any of you have asked that question. I know I do. Lord, I've done it again. Why are you bothering with me? What sort of a servant am I? Well, he bothers with us because he loved us just as he loved his servant David. He loves us simply from the depths of his grace. No other reason, not because we've done anything to deserve his blessing, not because we've done anything to deserve that love, but because he's chosen to show us his favor. Have a look in Philippians 1, verse 6. Philippians 1, verse 6. We're going to preach a series on Philippians in the autumn in the morning services. So do come and hear those. It's a wonderful book and we'll be studying it in some detail. Philippians 1, verse 6. Where the Apostle Paul says this, I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion in the day of Jesus Christ. See, the Apostle Paul understood this teaching. What God has started, God will complete. When he brought you to Christ, he will complete. He'll bring it to fulfillment. Well, how grateful David was when he realized how God had used Abigail to stop his sin. Turning back to chapter 25 of 1 Samuel, have a look at verse 32. David who haven't mentioned the Covenant Lord throughout this whole episode now sees the Lord in Abigail's words. And his very first words of response are these. Blessed be Yahweh, blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me. David saw God's hand at work in what Abigail was doing. He realized that it was God who had stopped him sinning. Good. Verse 33. Blessed be your discretion and blessed be you who have kept me this day from blood guilt and from avenging myself with my own hand. Well, verse 34 as well, for as surely as the Lord that Yahweh, the God of Israel lives, who has restrained me from hurting you unless you made haste and come to meet me, surely by morning there had not been left to enable so much as one male. What's he saying? He's saying that Yahweh has spoken through Abigail. The Covenant Lord has stopped him from sinning and has stopped him from hurting Abigail as well. So quite miraculously, the Lord God provided David with a way out before it was too late. And in providing a way out of the sin, God shows that he continues, you see, to be gracious to his people. It's not just a matter of salvation in the past and it's over and done with and God just lets you get on and do what you like from now on. Salvation is over and past in the sense that you now have it so much do you have it that God stays with you. He doesn't leave you to get on with it. He stays with you and he sees you through. He provides graciously for us. Turn back to the New Testament again to 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 13. 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 13. And you'll see there that God is still just as gracious with us in the New Testament as well. Paul says this, no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful. That's the point we're getting from this passage in Samuel, isn't it? God is faithful. And he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will always provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. David had sinned in his anger. That's two he need not have done, but David now takes the way out that is offered by God through Abigail. He recognized just what the Apostle Paul recognized in 1 Corinthians 10, 13 there. He recognized that God is faithful to his people. God does offer the way out of sin and he took it. That by the way is the difference between a faithful believer and a non-believer. It is that the faithful person confronted by God responds in repentance and then seeks to take the path that God offers of righteousness. The unbeliever fails either to take that way out or to respond with repentance. We're all tempted, aren't we, to anger? And to many, many other sins. Your sins will be different from mine. We're all individuals. But the Bible shows us that God does faithfully look after us and he does provide ways out of temptations. We never have to sin. Let me repeat that because there's a lot of Christians would say otherwise these days and what a distortion of the truth it is. We never have to sin. It may be difficult, very difficult not to. The temptation may seem overwhelming. Perhaps the consequences of not sinning seem to be so dire that we feel we have to sin. But we never have to sin because God is faithful and he expects us to take the way of avoidance that he offers the way out. Now are we prepared to do that in our lives, to take the way out that God offers when we are tempted? Perhaps we rather like our sin, perhaps we rather like indulging ourselves. And what this passage is reminding us is that we must remember our calling, our calling to serve God. And we must ask for his help to be able to take the way out and not to sin. God works then through David's sin to overrule to David's great benefit because David did eventually leave Navel, left him in God's hands, God did what was just in God's eyes and Navel ended up having a stroke and dying. And the result was that God provided David with a faithful believing wife, a faithful believing wife. And that was very much needed by David. He needed someone around him who would be faithful to the covenant Lord. Any man needs a wife who will keep bringing him back to the Lord just as Abigail did on that occasion. But God prevented a sin, God provided a wife. And in doing so of course God, and this is what is surely most important, God furthers his own purpose and will to preserve the anointed King David. You see it took Abigail to point out to David that it was his calling that was in danger if he sinned in this way. She knew that the covenant Lord had promised David he would be King, verse 30. Have a look at that verse because it just shows how much she had heard and understood and believed. And when the 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 Lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my Lord taking vengeance himself. And when the Lord has dealt well with my Lord, then remember your hand made. She knows what David's calling is. She believes in it. David's almost forgotten it. He's about to go and commit a sin which would say, well, you know, I have to do it on my own. The Lord's not with me. She says come back to the Lord. He'll give you what he's promised. He's the covenant Lord, he's the faithful Lord, he loves you. He's going to take care of you. If he's promised that, he's going to carry it through. Here's a woman saying this to the King, the potential of the future King. She knew that the Lord himself would look after David and was looking after him. He didn't need to commit a sin to further the Lord's will in his life. The Lord's will for David would be brought about by the Lord. David wouldn't have to struggle or sin in order to get it. If he did that, he'd be denying the Lord's calling. So through Abigail, you see the Lord reminds David of his calling and of the Lord that he was supposed to serve. Now what an episode this is in the life of David. A beautiful and spiritually wise woman is used by the Lord, preventing from sinning. God then provides her as a wonderful and faithful wife, faithful that is to God and then he preserves David for the calling he has as God's anointed King. We need to learn today that God does look after us in the same way he looked after David. He does preserve us through to the calling he has given us. He does provide us with a way out of our sin. He may not provide us with a wife, little keepers on the straight and narrow, but he provides other ways of help to us, not least of which of course is those Christians around us in the church in the New Testament. And let's remember that the Lord's suffering will and purpose for David's life was not thwarted by David's sin of anger and desire for vengeance. Any more than you and I can thwart God's purpose in our lives. I praise God for that truth because by now with my sin in my life I think God's purpose would be well and truly thwarted. How do you feel about that? You see David with his anger and so on was not able to thwart God's purpose because of course I mean his logical isn't it God is a sovereign God. He has purposed and he has willed and called us to serve him. So he will provide the way out of our sin. He will provide the help we need and when we sin he will forgive us because he's promised to. He is faithful and loving to us in this way the same way to us as he was to David if we believe and trust in him and the work that he has begun in us. You can be sure just as the apostle Paul was assured you can be sure that work he will bring to completion. Let's praise God for that now. Let's pray. Our father we praise you that the work that you begin in our lives you do brings a completion. We thank you for your faithfulness to us in providing ways out of temptation and providing means that draw attention to us draw attention to us in for us father we thank you. We thank you for promising to take us through to the day of Jesus Christ. Amen.