Good evening. Well, it is, as Mike said and others have said, it's been a long time since I've been up here. And since we've been here, we got back from my sabbatical about, I don't know, two weeks ago, I think. And just very thankful for your kindness of generosity and the sessions, for giving me the chance to go on the sabbatical. I didn't realize how much I needed it until I was right in the middle of it. And so, it's good to have had that experience and looking back on that now. One of the things that's interesting, one of the things that I was thinking about when Mike was praying, I mean, I was praying with them, of course. But one of the things I was thinking about when Mike was praying was that the gospel doesn't make us immune to all the things that we wish it would, right? And one of those things that we're going to be talking about tonight, anger. Anger is one of those things that afflicts us as humans. And as Christians, it is still with us. And so, part of what we're going to look at tonight is from the wisdom literature, but also from one of my favorite stories in all the Bible. Incidentally, today at lunchtime, one of my sweeties, Liberty, she said, Dad, we were talking about something and she said, Dad, I got a question and what is it? And she's like, how did we get our names? Right? Parents, you probably know what I'm talking about. Your kids ask you, how did you find the name that you chose for me? Well, we went through all of them and then we got to my littlest Abigail. And that's actually the story we're going to look at tonight is Abigail, first Samuel 25. And she's probably my favorite heroin in all the scriptures. But we'll see from that story particularly that there are ways for us to respond to anger. And it's interesting because there are always two choices that we have when it comes to our responses. And those two choices, they set us off on two separate trajectories and those lead to two very different destinations. And a couple of case studies, for example, one of them, and these are all from our nation's experience, recent experience, and they're well known to us, and they're troubling in one sense, but encouraging in another, the first one is Ferguson, Missouri. Last year, August of 2014, Michael Brown was killed by police officer Darren Wilson. And that led to responses of all kinds, but particularly responses of anger. Those responses of anger led to seasons of rioting, seasons of tension. In fact, those didn't end in November, he was acquitted, but even in March of 2015, when the police chief of Ferguson resigned, there were two police officers shot from long range on the steps of the Ferguson police station. So anger gives birth to other things. Well, another example, more recent, is in Charleston, South Carolina, a manual AME church. It's very recent in June. You've got a man, Dylan Roof, a white guy who comes, is invited into an historically black church for the Bible study, and at the end of it, he guns down nine people. Here's the response, and these have been all over the internet and in the paper, so they'll be familiar to you. But here's the response. One grieving family member says this, two Dylan Roof. I just wanted everybody to know, to you, I forgive you. If you took something very precious away from me, I will never talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you. You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people. May God forgive you, and I forgive you. So no rioting, no racial tension, no police bashing, but something very different. So on the one hand, you've got anger that begets more anger, tension, and rioting. On the other hand, you have something very different. You've got tragedy met with patience and trust, and that led to forgiveness and long suffering. And you know how a Christian, how the church responds to sins and afflictions and disappointments, can either be our single greatest witness success or our greatest witness failure. And it's inevitable that we as Christians deal with being sinned against, being disappointed, afflictions, and suffering. It's written into our lives on this earth. Paul writes in Colossians chapter 1, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake. And in my flesh, I'm filling up what's lacking in Christ's afflictions. He writes to the Thessalonians, you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers. And in Romans, he writes, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope. There are many things locked up into our responses to sin and to disappointment and discouragement. There's completing Christ's afflictions, there's people who are saved because of the way that we suffer, and there's hope. So how we respond to sin, to suffering, or to disappointment are very, very important. Of course, anger is just one of those things that we're confronted with all the time, and so anger as a response is also significantly important. Our greatest triumph or our greatest failure. Now our focus tonight is on wrath, on anger, as I said. And as a part of the seven deadly sins, it's considered in the top three with pride and envy. They're called cardinal sins, or sins that produce more sin. The Bible is full of wisdom in dealing with this. One of them is Proverbs 1429, whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper consults folly. So tonight, if you have your Bible's turn to 1 Samuel, chapter 25, this story is all about responses to anger, where these responses mean everything. Now in this text, I'm going to ask a question and the text is going to give us three answers. The question is, why respond to sinful anger with trust or patience rather than more anger? Why respond to sin with trust and patience instead of more anger? The text says, three reasons, because the response of anger leads to worse things, because the response of trust and patience leads to better things, and because God will reward all our responses. So those are my three main points. I know you've got plenty of room on your notes to take those down. But this story, for Samuel 25, falls between, of course, chapters 24 and 26 with shared this one thing in common. David has had a chance to kill Saul. And in chapter 24 and in chapter 26, he doesn't. His response is a great example for us. Well, in chapter 25, his example is a little bit different. So let's read. Starting in verse 2, we'll read to verse 13. And remember, the question we're asking here is, why respond to sin with trust or patience rather than anger? And the answer that this part of this passage tells us is the response of anger leads to worse things. Beginning in verse 2. Then David rose and went down to the wilderness of parent. And there was a man and man whose business was in caramel. The man was very rich. He had 3,000 sheep and 1,000 goats. He was sharing his sheep in caramel. 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 calibite. David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was sharing his sheep, so David sent 10 young men. And David said to the young men, go up to caramel and go to Nabal and greet him in my name. And thus you shall greet him. Peace be to you. Peace be to your house. Peace be to all that you have. Hear that you have shears. Now your shepherds have been with us and we did them no harm, and they miss nothing all the time they were in caramel. 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. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.
When David's young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David and then they waited. And Nabal answered David's servants. Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters. Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shears and give it to men who come from I do not know where? So David's young men turned away and came back and told him all this. And David said to his men, every man strapped on his sword and every man of them strapped on his sword. And David also strapped on his sword and about 400 men went up after David while 200 remained with the baggage. So the situation is pretty clear. David is in the wilderness. Carmel is close by. There's a man that he knows Nabal. He's in Carmel. The text tells us he's very rich. He's already shearing his sheep. He's already preparing for the feast. The narrator tells us a little bit about Nabal that his words confirm for us that he was harsh and badly behaved. We get introduced to Abigail as well who is beautiful and discerning. I just love that description. So David says, OK, 10 of you go and greet Nabal with this threefold greeting of peace, which would have been clear to Nabal that they met in a harm, acknowledge that he's shearing, remind him of the services that we rendered to him, and tell him that we plan to come and feast, and then ask for whatever you have at hand to give to your servants. And David instructs the men to do that with respect. He calls them your servants and your son David. So David is in his request is sinfully rebuffed. Who is David? Which is Nabal basically saying, David's in nobody. Which is really interesting because he was anointed to be king, not yet installed. He was in the same clan as Nabal, a Judahite. And Nabal really did know David because he calls him a son of Jesse. Now son of Jesse is the way that Saul would talk about David, kind of as an epithet son of Jesse, sister shepherd, kind of like that. And also lastly, calls him basically an outlaw, a runaway slave. Well, David's response is pretty clear. Every man strap on his sword and every man did that. And David also says, over in verse 22, God do so to the enemies of David and more also. If by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him. Well David's response is immediate, it's vehement, it's warlike, it's overwhelming in numbers, 400 of his warriors, and it's also vengeance. David's response to Nabal sin was vengeance. And we know this because we hear it on the lips of Abigail, in verse 26. Now then, this is Abigail talking to David now. Now then, my Lord, the Lord has restrained you from blood guilt and from saving with your own hand. Look also over in verse 31. She says, my Lord, she'll have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause, or for my Lord working salvation within himself. So what does this mean? Several things. Number one, obviously Nabal was wicked. His response to David was a wicked response. But David was almost surprised by this. Surely Nabal's reputation as a harsh and baili-behaved man was known. But David was surprised. Nabal also didn't take his debts seriously. David goes to Nabal and basically says because of what we've done for you, then please give us what is owed to us. Well, Nabal ignored those real debts he had to David. But David's response to sin was sin. And he showed no trust in the Lord, vengeance. In other words, David's response to Nabal sin doesn't justify David's response. Nabal's not given an opportunity to make restitution or to do what David asked. David is bent on annihilation. David's not after justice. If that were true, he would not have committed himself to destroying every one of the males in Nabal's house. A horribly unbalanced response to Nabal's sin. For sure, Nabal was an idiot for his response. But David's response, in turn, it just didn't match up. What was interesting, too, is that David in this response was jeopardizing his calling to be king. Because there would not have installed a man whose history included wicked vengeance. So there's a lot at stake in David's response. And so what does this matter to us? Wickedness and evil are real. So when it's our turn to deal with being sinned against, or our turn to deal with evil or difficulty or affliction, we've got to be prepared to respond. Nabal was certifiably evil, but David seemed unprepared for that. Ignorant of it, maybe. We cannot be ignorant of evil and wickedness, or we may as well respond just as David did. Responses of sin are easy in the face of sin if we're unprepared. But most importantly, responses of sinful anger to sin will always lead us down a path that's worse than the original sin. What Nabal did to David was bad, but nowhere near as bad as what David was now going to perpetrate against God and against Nabal. Two things that we know about this, God has said that vengeance is what He does. It's not for us to do. Our obligations when we're sinned against are very different. Leviticus 19, 18 says, you shall not take vengeance or bear grudge against the sons of your own people. But you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. Vengeance is worse than any initiating sin because in vengeance, we take God's place. We become the one that decides what needs to happen. We become the judge and the jury, and even in David's case, the executioner. You see how David's response led him down a horrid path of unrighteousness and sin. A sinful anger response to sin leads to more and worse sin. Thankfully, David's response isn't the only one. We also have another response, Abigail's. Quite a contrasting response. We look at the next passage of verses here. We're going to step through it a little by a little. But I think it's important to look at it all so you can feel the weight of just what's happening here. Now the question, why respond to sin with patience and trust rather than with anger? Because the response of patience and trust leads to better things. Verse 14. But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, behold, he sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master. And he railed at them. Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm. 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, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. Now therefore know this and consider what you should do for harm is determined against our master and against all his house. And he is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him. So a master comes to Abigail to find out what has happened. Apparently she did not know. Nabal, true to his form, railed at the messengers. And so now the man starts to unpack a little bit of why it's true that Nabal's response was baseless. David and his men were very good to them. They suffered no harm by them. They suffered no lack or theft, and they were protected by them. Interesting too that the eyewitness knew that harm would come to Nabal in his house, including to Abigail. It's look at verse 18. Then Abigail made haste and took 200 loaves and two skins of wine and five sheep already prepared and five seas of parched grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and 200 cakes of figs and laid them on donkeys. And she said to her young men, go on before me. Behold, I come after you. But she did not tell her husband Nabal. And as she rode on the donkey and came down under the cover of the mountains, behold, David and his men came down toward her. And she met them. Now David had said, surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him. And he has returned me evil for good. God do so to the enemies of David and much more also if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him. Well, Abigail acts to intercede and David's response back in the earlier part of the passage in verse 13 was this hasty response of war. Well, Abigail's is very different. It's a hasty response of a different kind, a trusting patient response as we'll see as we walk through the text. She sent these gifts ahead of her to meet David so that in his anger he would be confronted by this overwhelming show of goodwill. She also was discerning and that she didn't tell Nabal because she knew that what the servant said about him was true that he was a worthless man. So she sent and she met with David and it's interesting the narrator here in verse 21 and 22 gives us a snapshot of what's going on inside David's mind. Abigail is walking into the buzz saw of David's rage. Now he's worked himself up to the degree that he is going to annihilate all of the men in Nabal's household effectively doing what Joshua did when he came into the land. Joshua would destroy all of the nations so that there was not a memory of them in the land. David was going to do the same thing to a member of his own clan. Abigail was walking into this 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. 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. Let not my Lord regard this worthless fellow, Nabal, for as his name is so is he. Nabal is his name and folly is with him. But I, your servant, did not see the young man of my 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 Lord be his Nabal. And now let this present that your servant has brought to my Lord be given to the young man who follow my Lord. Please forgive the trespass of your servant. For the Lord will certainly make my Lord a sure house because my Lord is fighting the battles of the Lord. An evil shall not be found in you so long as you shall live. If men rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my Lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living and the care of the Lord your God. In the lives of your enemies, he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling. When the Lord is done to my Lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you and has appointed you prince over Israel, my Lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my Lord working salvation himself. And when the Lord has dealt well with my Lord, then remember your servant. It's a remarkable ways that she speaks to David. She walks into the situation that we reading the story or just not sure how it's going to work. And what does she do but she gives David six reasons why he should not commit vengeance? Reason number one is that her husband, Nebaw, is not worth it. She says so in verse 25, let not my Lord regard this worthless fellow. So waste of your time, my Lord, to go after such a worthless man. She also confronts him and says, for number two, this is revenge what you do. Blood guilt and saving by your own hand and shedding blood without cause. The third thing she says to him is that hear my Lord. Here's the gift that you sought initially. Here's the provision that you sought. You have what you want it. Three reasons. And then she does something a second time. She asks for David to forgive the trespass of your servant. And who is she talking about? Verse 28. Is she talking about Nebaw? Is she talking about herself? Is she now taken on herself the sins of her husband and asking for forgiveness? And the narrator leaves us kind of hanging there but Abigail goes into three more reasons. Why? David should turn away from vengeance. The first is that God will make David a sure house because David fights for the Lord. So do not commit vengeance. The next one is God will bind up David's welfare and battle and sling out his enemies. So do not commit vengeance. And the third is that when he's made leader over Israel, something that Abigail is confident is going to happen. She says to him, you will have no cause for regret or pangs of conscience. Six reasons why David should not commit vengeance. So what does this mean? We see an Abigail discernment. We see wisdom. She knew Nebaw. So she knew going to him was useless herself and she knew to tell David he's not worth it either. She also knew that Nebaw's debts were real and that they had to be paid. Which is why she produced this present to give to him. Discernment. But also trust. She seemed to believe that if she did what was right, this situation could be fixed. She seemed to trust that the Lord who clearly she believed was with David was also going to be with her. So why does this matter to us? Two reasons. Without sinful anger, clear headed discernment is possible. Responses of trust and patience make doing the right things possible. I mean, think about it. Abigail could have been losing her mind that 400 men, headed by a guy who a song was created about him. You remember it. Saul kills his thousands but David kills his 10,000s. This guy was coming after her and her family. She could have been losing her mind. Or she could have been furious at Nebaw. What a worthless fellow. I can't believe he said that to David. But she didn't. Her response was patience. Trust. And so she could think in the moment what needed to happen. Think about your own experience. When you've had that opportunity, you've been at the brink of losing your mind. Someone sins against you. Something's afflicting you and you're just about to lose it but you don't. You remember what that's like? Or maybe if you haven't had that experience yet, what do you think it would be like? It'd be peaceful. It'd be a time for clear thinking. It'd be a time for courage, faith, and looking back on it. Clear conscience. Without sinful anger, clear headed discernment is possible. And that is far better than sinful anger. Secondly, without sinful anger, clouding our mind, speaking of the truth in love appropriately is also possible. Six different reasons that Abigail gave to David so that he would not take vengeance. And she spoke them with courage, with clarity, conviction, boldness, without fear. If we respond to sin with trust, patience, then this kind of righteous actions can happen. Now I mentioned it before but David didn't know it at the time but Abigail was saving his future because she had the presence of mind to speak the truth to him appropriately. And all of that was grounded in a trusting response to sin. That's where it all started. Without sinful anger, speaking the truth in love is possible and that is far better than sinful anger. But see here in the text, we don't know what's going to happen. We know that David is full of rage. We know that Abigail has now stood between David's rage and her family's destruction and so we wonder, is this going to go well? Well, we don't know yet. But we do and that's the third point. God was watching and he will give just reward to all the responses. So why respond to sin with trust or patience rather than anger? It's because God will reward our response. Look at verse 32. David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel who sent you this day to meet me. Blessed be your discretion. Blessed be you who have kept me this day from blood guilt and from working salvation with my own hand. For 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 nab all so much as one male. Then David received from her hand what she had brought him and he said to her, Go up and piece to your house. See, I have obeyed your voice and I have granted your petition. So what we read in this text is God's reward to Abigail, a threefold blessing. He agrees with her assessment of his motives and his actions were to accept her gifts, to send her home in peace, assuring her that she was safe as was her family. And later on we know in the text, he makes her his queen. Well, what about nab all? What was the reward for nab all? Look at verse 36. Abigail came to nab all and behold, he was holding a feast in his house like the feast of a king. And nab all's heart was married within him for he was very drunk. So she told him nothing at all until the morning light. In the morning when the wine had gone out of nab all, his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him and it became as a stone. And about ten days later the Lord struck nab all and he died. God's reward for nab all was death because that is the wages of sin. Death. What about David? Verse 39. When David heard that nab all was dead, he said, blessed be the Lord, who's avenged the insult I received at the hand of nab all, and has kept back his servant from wrongdoing. The Lord has returned the evil of nab all on his own head. Then David sent and spoke to Abigail to take her as his wife. When the servants of David came to Abigail at Carmel, they said to her, David has sent us to you to take you to him as his wife. And she rose, bowed with her face to the ground and said, be hold, your hand made is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my Lord. And Abigail hurried and rose and mounted a donkey and her five young women attended her and she followed the messengers of David and became his wife. God's reward to David, nab all's death was vindication. David was truly sinned against. God was the one who was the judge and the jury and the executioner, vindication, but also righteousness. You see what David said, he kept back his servant from wrongdoing. Had David gone through with what he had planned, he would have become unrighteous and unfit for the crown. And lastly, David was rewarded with a woman who was discerning and beautiful as his wife. So what does it mean? Abigail was right to respond to Nabal's actions with a trust and patience response because God was watching. David recognized that God was involved the whole time and Nabal received what he had earned. So what does this matter to us? Two things. First, God is watching our responses in the face of sin. The way that David's wrath was abated and he was vindicated in Abigail's life and the lives of her family were spared and she was protected and blessed. And the way Nabal was destroyed, all proof God's watchful care over the affairs of his people. To those who deserve vindication, vindication comes. To those who deserve destruction, destruction comes. God isn't just watching to punish us and our disobedience. He's watching to reward us for righteous action. Proverbs 15 verse 2 says, The eyes of the Lord are in every place keeping watch on the evil and the good. Psalm 146 verse 9 says, The Lord watches over the sojourners. He upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. Secondly, we can have confidence in God's justice. David repented along the path of vengeance, refrained from doing what he had set out to do and he was rewarded. Nabal, a wretched sinner that he was, likewise, justly rewarded. And Abigail, her discernment, her courage, her confidence, she likewise was rewarded justly. And you know, folks, this is the way the Lord is. Psalm 37 verses 5 and 6. Commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him and He will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noon day. Standing against sinful anger is worth it and it will be rewarded by the Lord. So the text gives us three reasons why our response to sin, to affliction, to difficulty, should not be anger. Number one, because that response of anger leads to worse things. For David, it was the pathway of vengeance. For Nabal, it was the pathway to destruction. Secondly, because the response of trust and patience leads to better things. When we look at the picture of Abigail, her gifts were accepted, her life and the lives of her children were spared and she was made a queen. For David, it was righteousness, it was vindication, it was safety from being disqualified from being king. And lastly, because God will reward our responses. So the question for us, the questions are you? The victim of sin? Are you standing on the wrong side of oppression and affliction? Are you contemplating retribution? Is it a good response? Perhaps you think that a retributive response isn't vengeance and is a godly response. I'm not going to kill the guy, I'm just going to make sure he gets what he deserves. How's that not vengeance? Is that response of patience and trust? Perhaps you don't know what to do. Should you act to destroy someone's reputation because they've earned it or should your response be patience, trust in the Lord and hope? Well, I think our story shows what the wisdom literature bears out that God is always watching, always acting on behalf of his own. He will always bring justice. So the Bible tells us that when God is our king, Christ is our Redeemer, the Holy Spirit is our helper. He fights our battles. He vindicates us. So when the gospel becomes what defines you and yet anger still confronts you, we cannot forget. God is our king. Jesus is our Redeemer, the Spirit is our helper. He will fight our battles. Responses of trust and patience is the way of wisdom because our God can be counted on to do what is right just as he's promised. Let's pray. Father, your word is a light to our path, particularly when in our experience we're confronted with the fruit of our own sin, the sins of someone else, affliction, oppression, and Lord we lose our way. But we thank you, we thank you, for the scriptures, and for your Holy Spirit who reminds us that the pathway of patience and trust, the pathway of wisdom, it's the better way. We thank you, O Lord, that you are always watching, ever caring, ever mindful, that all things in the lives of those who love you is bent for the good of those who love you. And this is what you do. Lord, I ask, we ask, that you would give us your Holy Spirit so that our responses would not be sinful anger, but patience and trust and Christ's name. Amen.