First Samuel, chapter number 25. As you're turning there, we last left David and we were given a glimpse of his heart that was right with the Lord in the fact that he did not touch the anointed Saul. He had the opportunity to kill Saul and get revenge and he didn't do it. Instead of murdering his enemy, he exercised much grace and wisdom, didn't he, in chapter number 24. That was probably three weeks ago since we've studied that. He allowed Saul to live and David reaches the pinnacle maybe of love and forgiveness. But in chapter 25, we have an entirely different situation and state of mind. God is merciful unto him. He actually says in verse 39 that God kept him, his servant, from evil. I love that expression. When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, Blessed be the Lord that hath pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and hath kept his servant from evil. He doesn't take the credit for himself. He gives the credit to the Lord for not killing Nabal. He wanted to, by the way. He certainly did. He got angry. He certainly did. He got mad. Yes, he did. And that's the danger of anger. And anger is very dangerous. Anger is temporary insanity. If you get drunk on anger, you'll do things you never thought you'd do before. Never knew a person could do something like that. They must have got drunk. No, just get angry. Let it brew and let it intoxicate you and you'll do things and say things you never thought you'd ever say. Who can say, yeah? How about it? Yeah. We're all not above it, are we? We know it so well, we can get there. And we have to give our feelings to God, to give our feelings to God. Everybody in here has just admitted that they have a problem with anger, can rise up. Anger like fire finally dies out, but only after it leaves a path of destruction. Anger like fire finally dies out but only after leaving a path of destruction. I'm sure you've left some destruction behind when you've gotten mad. And the alarming thing about it is we usually don't do it to people we don't know like David didn't know Nabal. We do it to people that we love the most and they're closest to us. Maybe we're comfortable. The Bible says things, and we'll get to 1 Samuel, the Bible says, to be ye angry and sin not. Let not your sin go down on your wrath. That means don't go to bed. Don't let sin go down on your brewing. If you're mad with the one you love, your family, friends, you don't go to bed drunk. Because when you go to sleep, it only gets stronger as you sleep. It only fuels more, doesn't it? You ever try to go to sleep and say, well, when I go to sleep, it'll all be better. And you wake up, you're exactly the same. If I go somewhere else, somewhere else, is it going to change? No. You still have to deal with your own container. You still have to deal with your own container, you. And anger's in there. Don't go to bed mad. The Bible says in Psalms 37 and verse 8, cease from anger and forsake wrath, fret not thyself of any wise to do evil. The Bible says in Proverbs 14 and verse number 29, he that is slow to wrath is of great understanding, but he that is hasty of spirit, exalted folly. Here's another one, Ecclesiastes 7 and verse 9, be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry, for anger resteth in the bosom of fools. We have two people here that were angry, Nabal And we have David. We have one lady here, Abigail, who was wise. She was wise. I mean, she was a wise. She was just as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside. The Bible talks about her beauty inward and outward. But she was wise, David was rash, and Nabal was a fool. He was a fool. He was some sort of fool. And it shows that he dies here in verse number 38. And the Lord smoked Nabal and he died. David listened to Abigail, remember? We'll get there, maybe not tonight. He listens to Abigail. And she is a picture of the Holy Spirit. When you're mad, And if you're born again, the Holy Spirit will gently rebuke you. The Holy Spirit will gently whisper in your ear and tell you, hey now, when you're angry, you have an Abigail, the sweetness of the Holy Spirit will not pull you, he'll not yank you, but just like sweet Abigail, he'll draw you. and speak to you. That's why sometimes we want to go to sleep on our wrath because the Holy Spirit's dealing with us and we can't get away from Him. And those are the three people in this text. Abigail wise, David rash, and Nabal a fool. Verse 1, and Samuel died and all the Israelites were gathered together and lamented him. Samuel dies and buried him in his house at Ramah. How about that? Samuel dies. There's a point in the man once to die and then the judgment. There's going to come a time that we all die unless Jesus comes back. There's going to be an appointed day. We're all going to die. And this is death takes place here and they all gathered together and lamented and buried him in his house. By the way, he buried him. They didn't burn him. They buried him. They buried him. They put his body in the ground and buried him. If at all possible, respect the temple of God and bury your body. And if you need some help to be able to do that, I'll help you do it. Help me now, and I'll help you do it. And what I mean by that, the church will help you do it, because that body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. Amen? Bury the body. I don't think, well, you've heard it before, but burning the body is a pagan practice. and gather together and honor the death of somebody. Do it the right way. Gather together. You'll do more to show appreciation for a family by showing up at somebody's funeral than anything else in the whole wide world. Just lay it all aside and say, I'll go, I'll drive, I'll take my day out the way, and I'll go. You'll show no more respect to a family or to their family than to do that just right there and mourn with those that mourn and weep with those that weep. Amen, church. And that's what they did. They lamented him and buried him in his house at Ramah. And then in verse number 2, we get into this account here of Nabal. He was a rich man whose possessions were in Carmel. The man was very great. He had 3,000 sheep and 1,000 goats. That sounds like an Arkansas guy right there. He's got 1,000 goats. That's right. Sounds like he's an Atchison. And he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. The name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. And she was a woman of good understanding and a beautiful countenance, but the man was churlish. And I'm telling you, that means he was just rough, churlish. He was rough and rough. I can just almost see how his countenance was so different than the beautiful countenance of Abigail, right? And evil in his doings. Oh boy. He was of the house of Caleb. And so there's Nabal and Abigail. And David heard in the wilderness that Nabal did shear his sheep. Now it's shearing time. That means it's time to It's time to make the profit and time to get the wool out. It's shearing time. And David hears about this and David's anger is considered here as we read about this account here. David's anger considered. Let's look at verse number five. And David sent out ten young men. And David said unto the young man, get you up to Carmel and go to Nabal and greet him in thy name. And thus shall you say to him that liveth in prosperity. This guy's got a lot of money, plenty of it. And this is what you're going to say to him. Here it is. Peace. Be both to thee, and peace be unto the house, and peace unto all that thou hast. And now have I heard that thou hast shears, shearing time. Now thy shepherds which were with us, we hurt them not, neither was there aught missing unto them all the while they were in Carmel. He's saying here, David's saying, my men protected you, Nabal. They protected your sheep. We were around. And he goes on and Nabal answers the question for sake of time in verse number 10. And this is Nabal's response to David's servants. Who's David? And who is the son of Jesse? There be many servants nowadays that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my... Look at this. Shall I then take my bread, my water, and my flesh, that I have killed for my shears, and give it unto men whom I know not whence they be?" He was selfish to the core. He thought everything, he had everything, but he thought everything was entitled to him. My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my was his word. Four times the word my is used. Nabal thought it all belonged to him, didn't he? He wasn't gonna, we've been studying about stewardship, haven't we? And how that we don't own anything, it all belongs to God, doesn't it? In Sunday school, those have been good lessons. Well, he obviously never learned that lesson because that's why God called him a fool. So the young men, Verse 12, turned their way and went again and came and told him all these sayings. Okay. All right. They just told David that. Now I just want you to think about how David responded to Saul in chapter 24 and how David's going to get riled up here so much differently than chapter 24. And David said unto his men, Gerge on every man his sword. And they girded on every man his sword, and David also girded on his sword. And there went up after David about four hundred men, and two hundred abode by the stuff." Yikes! He's ready to go at them. He's going to take six hundred men to kill one guy. That's the power of anger. David said, I served as a protective force against you and these shepherds, and I've greeted you kindly. Now you're going to have this attitude towards me? Who's David? And shall I give him any bread? And you're not going to have any sort of hospitality towards me, which was common in those days? No such at all. So David says, I'll take care of you. He takes matters into his own hands. Remember we had a message about that a couple weeks ago. It's always wrong to take matters into your own hands, but remember this, anger always manages everything badly. When you get mad, you'll always manage the situation evilly and badly. You'll take it into your own hands. Have you ever been mistreated? Have you ever been misunderstood? Has your name ever been misspoken and it infuriates you? What's your first response? Well, sometimes your first response is, I'm going to do just that. I'm going to take care of business. I'm going to revenge and have recompense. The Bible says we ought not to take vengeance into our own hands. Vengeance belongeth unto the Lord, Romans chapter number 12. You know, when we take matters into our own hands and get angry and let the flesh get all stirred up, what we do is we end up doing something that we'll later have to repent of and we will regret. Now you can repent of something and you can get it right with God, but you can still live in regret for what you had to do to somebody else that you had to still remember. When you get angry, you can do that. You can say something to somebody, do something to somebody, and do something to your children where you break relationship. Do something to your family where broken relationship, and they won't forgive you back. You might have get it right with God, but you can't get that relationship back. Because it takes two. Because of anger. That's why it's like being drunk. We've all said things before and got stirred up. David had reasons to be angry. His reaction was, hey, I'm going to take this into my own hands, verses 12 and 13. Anger will make you do some pretty stupid things. Anyone know what I mean? Somebody said, it's an old Chinese proverb, Said it like this, he who flies off the handle always makes a bad landing. He who flies off the handle always makes a bad landing. And I think we've known about those bad landings. He was a bad man. Nabal wasn't in the right. You're going to have people that are wrong. You're going to have people that do you wrong. They're clerish. They're of great evil. They're all about themselves. They're going to do you wrong. But your response to them is only your responsibility. And that's before God and not before men. You're going to have people that are clourish. If you ever work on a job site, you're going to have a nabal. Can I get a witness with both hands? Who's ever worked with a nabal before? Raise both hands and kick your feet up. You've worked with one, haven't you? And I'm telling you what, if you're going to keep a Christian testimony, you're going to have to be filled with the Spirit. And you're going to have to listen to Abigail, the Spirit of God. Man, I've worked with people before that got on my last nerve. I promise you they were there just for me to learn how to be a Christian. They were there just, I'm serious. They were there just for me to learn how to be a real Christian and forgive them and love them just like they are. If you're serious about being a Christian long enough, you'll meet one of them. They're just precious. They're lovely. No, they're clourish, and they're of great evil. They're rough as sandpaper. It doesn't matter if they're male or female, does it? I've seen some females that are as clourish as clourish can be. We can't control what other people do, but we can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, control what we do. That's what we call temperance. Temperance is Christ's control. That's a fruit of the Spirit. Brother Strong, you're on the hot seat. Have you ever figured out before that you can't control yourself when you're angry? Oh yeah. Who's ever got hot enough, you know you're out of control. Yeah? What's got to come up is you've got to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and that's where temperance is. Temperance is not self-control. Do you realize there comes a point in time when you can't control yourself? You get so angry, you're out of control. That's when you've got to yield yourself to the Spirit of God and say, I'm handing this over to you. That's called faith. I'm going to trust God, and then He takes control. Because when you get in anger, you're temporarily insane. You're satanic. The results of anger is just that. Verses 21 and 22 talk about that. David was blinded by the rage. Now David angers there considered for just a moment and then his anger is going to be confronted by the Holy Spirit type. I hope I'm alright in saying that. If you don't agree with that, that's fine. That's just my opinion. It's just something that I just kind of thought was appropriate. If you don't agree with that, that's fine. But Abigail here kind of just reminds me of the Holy Spirit. She takes an appraisal of the situation in verses 14 through 20, and she realized that Nabal was a fool. But she's delicate about the situation. Notice what she says here about her husband and his situation, his character. Verse 17, now therefore know and consider what thou wilt do for evil is determined against our master and against all his household for he is such a son of Belial. How about that? That a man cannot speak to him. Now David wasn't there. That's the difference between David and Nabal. Nabal couldn't be talked to, but David could be talked to by Abigail. When you get to the place where you can't be talked to, you're a fool like Nabal. You better let Abigail talk to you. You better let the Holy Spirit talk to you. You better not sin against His voice or you're in trouble. Right? When he whispers to you and you turn away and turn away, your heart and your heart up. And then you'll be turned over to wrath and then you will explode and you will destroy some people's lives with the fire, not of anger, but of wrath. Wrath is inside, excuse me, anger is inside and wrath is the outpouring of anger. It's when you do something about it. See Nabal, he couldn't be talked to. So you say, well, why didn't Abigail talk to Nabal? Because he couldn't be talked to. He could not be talked to. Then Abigail made haste and took 200 loaves and 200 bottles of wine, five sheep ready dressed, five measures of parched corn, and 100 clusters of raisins, and 200 cakes of figs, and laid them on Asses. Sounds like she's somewhere in Proverbs 31, doesn't she? I mean, she's got a load. Talk about drive-through. Drive it to them, you know. I mean, talk about service. She's got it. She needs one of those signs on top of her little Kia. And it says pizza delivery on it, you know. That's what she's doing. She's being a servant here. And she's taking the situation into her own hands. And she's doing the right thing here. Nabal could have listened to her but she knew that he wouldn't do that. So she goes ahead and helps the situation honoring David and seeing that the situation was so evil she wants to help. So this is her appeal in the situation. if you will. There's six times she refers to David as David's handmaid and calls him Lord 14 times. She has a completely different spirit towards David, of course, than Nabal did. She was submissive. She was gracious and gentle. She tells David that God sent her to stop him from murdering the man in anger in verse number 26. And she tells David that if he kills Nabal in anger, it will hang over him. Abigail was doing something that the Holy Spirit does to us. The Holy Spirit tells us, be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. He tells us that, doesn't He? Well, I know He tells us that because He wrote the words down. The Holy Spirit took James' hand and put it down to paper and He said, Tell them to be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. And the Holy Spirit will tell you that in those moments, won't you? He'll tell you, shut your mouth. He'll tell you, don't say nothing. He'll tell you, why don't you give them a soft answer? Because a soft answer, what's it do? Turneth away wrath. Is God's word true? A soft answer, turneth away wrath. And Abigail here is doing just that. She's turning, not Nabal's wrath away, but her soft answer and her gentleness and graciousness is turning away David's wrath. It's exactly what's happened. My boys were out playing basketball the other day. I hope I'm alright with saying this. I think I'd say this if they were in here right now. I just got back home. Boys will be boys, won't they? They're just getting back. I tell you, they're growing up and as they grow up, they get shorter and shorter with one another, you know. It's kind of a macho man type of deal. They just get that way. We're watching over that real close. How you doing, Jackson? Alright, there you go. They were outside playing ball, and Brady was ready to go play some basketball. He'd missed a basketball hoop for eight days. I mean, it wasn't 30 minutes. When he got home, he was out there playing. And Parker wanted to play with him, you know. Well, Parker can't play ball quite like Brady can. But I don't know what exactly happened, Brother Jeff, but I was watching from the porch, and they got in a little scuffle. And Brady tried to forgive them. He said, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Parker wouldn't have had nothing to do with it. He wouldn't have nothing to do with it. Brady was admitting in his way of, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let's make it right. Come back and play ball with me. He ran off. We be that way sometimes too, you know that? He walked away and I, hey! He's trying to make things right. I don't know what happened. But you better go back and play ball with him. Because he's saying he's sorry. Went back, they played ball for the next 15 minutes. They made it right. But we're all that way. If somebody's trying to make things right with you, don't be so churish that you won't receive the forgiveness and the grace and the gentleness. Receive it. David could have been that way towards her. I ain't taking nothing from you. You're his wife. I ain't taking none of this stuff. Fooey to your raisins. Right? I ain't taking none of your gifts. What, are you just trying to bribe me? Some people are that way. I have none of that. You're part of his family. I'm not having none of it. They're so hardened up as a stone, they can't even receive goodness from people. People get that way. Why? Because they've let anger rest in their bosom too long. See, David, the difference is David didn't have that anger rest in his bosom much. He got flared up and he was wrong for it. I'm not justifying David. Can't do that, can we? We knew what his intention was. But if you let that stay in there long enough, you'll get like Nabal and you'll get so hard you can't even receive gifts from somebody. And when they give you something, you'll be thinking, oh, they're just trying to do something to me. They're trying to get me. They're trying to butter me up to kill me. You ever heard somebody talk that way? David wasn't that way because David was close enough to God enough that he didn't get hard like that. I'm telling you what, friends, I don't know what I'm preaching tonight. I really don't know. But I know this much. You got to stay sensitive to the Spirit of God and close to the Lord and let him keep you soft. Let him keep you tender. Don't get hardened up by bitterness and those green sins. Forgive people. Keep short accounts with God and your family and your wife and your husband and your children and siblings and your pastor even. Make it close like that because life is fragile, isn't it? The heart is fragile. Emotions are fragile. And let's love one another with a pure heart, fervently. Keep short accounts with God because you can get off kilter real, real quick. Abigail pictures the Holy Spirit though, doesn't she? Verse number 32, and David said to Abigail, blessed be the Lord God of Israel which sent thee this day to meet me. I'm so glad. I'm glad when the Lord meets us when we're mad. Amen. Elamity meets us when we're mad, gives us a little bit of advice. Look at verse 33, and blessed be thy advice. And blessed be thou which thou hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, from avenging myself with mine own hand. Isn't that something? So David received of her the hand, verse 35, so David received of her hand that which she had brought him and said, go up in peace to thine house. Isn't that something? He received from her and thanked her for the advice. And you know, I'm going to say this carefully, but sometimes the loud cry of anger in our hearts doesn't allow us to listen to the advice of God through other people. Anger gets so noisy that you can't even hear reason. You can't even talk to people because the anger is so loud, it's like insanity. It's like the loudest beat and the loudest drum, it's like a hard headache that just, you ever had a headache before that pulses your brain? And sometimes you can get your emotions so keyed up, you can get so stressed out about things and you are mental at that point. And you can not, you can't even hear the voice of reason. I was talking to somebody the other day, they as Christian as you are, they're mental. Their head is just pulsating with things that just don't even matter. You can get that way. And you can't hear the still small voice of God. If somebody talks to you about something, it just, it just, nothing. That's how, But David didn't get that far. He received the advice that she gave him. Now David's anger is conquered. And I don't have time to read all this. But David's anger is conquered. He receives this. We considered David's anger. We confronted David's anger. Now we see David's anger is conquered. He got the victory. The Bible says here that He receives of her hand that which she brought him. It could have been just much that the other way than receiving it. David here is seen as a great example of what we ought to do. and accepting what somebody gives to us and moving past what somebody's done to us. Sometimes it is hard. And it only takes the God of heaven and His grace to move past what somebody's done to you. Now I'll be honest with you about this right here. I just want to say this statement about this whole account. David's being pretty small. He's got everything coming to him. He's being pretty small. I mean, he didn't do them right. But he doesn't even know Nabal like that. He's not close to him. He knows he's got everything coming to him. And then he just got done forgiving Saul in chapter 24. He's looking pretty small right now, isn't he? This isn't that big of a deal, is it? That's how the devil works. When you look at what you're getting mad about, Most of the time say, what am I getting mad about? It's pretty small, pretty petty. I'm sorry. Right? I'm pretty petty. My dad says he's counseled people before. I'm sure I'll have to go through this one day in my life. Maybe everybody will just be perfect and I'll never have to counsel anybody through bad relationships. That won't happen. He says he's counseled people before. He'll sit them down in the office, marriage counsel. They want to get a divorce. And the Bible says, well, God has put together, let no man put asunder. So when you're a pastor, you're always trying to keep people together. Always. You're trying to keep that marriage together, period. And he says he'll sit down with people and he'll, he's asked several of them before, now where did this all begin? And they'll look at each other because they never talk to each other, they just live life together but never talk, and they'll look at each other and he said he's had several of them say, I don't know. I don't know where it all began. Why? Because it's petty. Most of it's petty. These things that we get upset about and mad about, they're usually small and petty and probably because lack of communication. Petty. I don't think this is a big deal at all, but David's getting mad about it. And look at me, Christian. Look right here real quick. Do we know what we have in Jesus Christ? We're kings and priests unto Him. What are we getting upset about small junk and petty stuff? Forgive them in the blood of Jesus Christ that has forgiven you and move on, right? I mean, it does look small. A child of the king? Who do we belong to? Him. And so move on and conquer and have victory over the small stuff. And by the way, I just want to share this with you. I think we can put a button on it here in the next five minutes. You know what? David's hands end up being clean of the whole situation. And in the end, David marries Abigail. David was saved and blessed because he listened to the voice that he was supposed to listen to, Abigail. And by the way, God will bless you, bless your marriage, bless your family, bless your life. If you'll listen to the Holy Spirit, he'll give you more than you can ever imagine if you just listen to that voice of the Holy Spirit. He got blessed. Nabal didn't listen, was self-centered, didn't listen to reason. Where's he at? Dead as a doornail in verse number 38. The Lord smote him, in verse 38. Struck down dead from being selfish, Abigail, the wise woman, ends up marrying the future king. What's this mean? Our actions affect our outcome. Our actions, and let me say this, not only our actions, but our reactions. David didn't make an action. Who made the action? Nabal. David reacted. Who knows reactions are harder than actions? You get that? Somebody does something to you and you've got a reaction then, right? Because of David's reactions to what Abigail said to him, he was blessed. Our reactions affect our outcome. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Your actions, my actions, our responses to things have a huge effect on our life tomorrow. David exercised temperance and was blessed. Abigail exercised wisdom and she was blessed. What we mean by this is our actions and reactions affect our outcome to life. You know, the way I react and the way I act as a father affects the culture and temperature of my home. Mama, same with you. Husband, wife, you're the thermostat of your lovely home. Whether it just be two of y'all left, kids are all gone, or whether you got children in there, everywhere. The way we react usually, not just act, but the way we react to one another. We control the spiritual climate in our homes. We were packed together all week. Don't ever say you want to ride with us. It can get hot sometimes. We get frustrated. But we have to watch ourselves, don't we? I'm flesh just like you. Sure. But I want my spiritual atmosphere in my home and in this church to be one that honors God, forgiving and forgiving one another, even as Christ, for God's sake, hath forgiven us. Being kind one to another, tenderhearted, right? A soft answer, turneth away wrath. That's just what you gotta do every day. And it's amazing how we do control it with our reactions. And that will create an atmosphere. in your home that's Christ-like. There's a lot of homes that have Christians inside of them, but that doesn't make it a Christian home. A Christian home is filled with people that act like Christ. I want a Christian home, don't you? I want a Christian church before I want a Baptist church. I want one that's Christ-like. I want to strive for that right there. There's a lot in there, isn't there? And I tell you, I didn't get any of it, hardly at all. But it's wonderful. Let's everybody stand together. And we'll close the service right now by everybody coming to the altar. Everybody come to the altar at this time. And we'll have a time of prayer together, if you don't mind. And remember these things from this great text of Scripture. And don't let these things leave your heart.